


Well, Guess What? You're Adults (And He's Not Even Here)

by nik_knows_nothing



Category: Cellular (2004), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Call (2013)
Genre: BAMF Michelle Jones, Blood and Injury, Daily Bugle, F/M, Kidnapping, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Peril, Photographer Michelle Jones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-03 02:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21172082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nik_knows_nothing/pseuds/nik_knows_nothing
Summary: Here are three things that happen:1. Thanos never comes.2. Tony Stark dies anyways.3. A phone number is forgotten.Really, no one of those things is so strange. It could've happened to anyone.MJ's just really, really lucky.(A Cellular/The Call AU where MJ answers the worst wrong-number call that anyone's ever gotten in the history of wrong-number calls.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based off one movie that I haven't seen in years and another movie that I read the Wikipedia page for.
> 
> Rating is for language, scenes of action peril, and threat of harm to minors.
> 
> Also. the title is from John Mulaney's "Street Smarts" bit, so there's that.

When Tony Stark dies, it's all over the news.

Of course it is.

Everyone's favorite tech billionaire superhero, tragically killed in the line of duty?

It's the biggest news day in months.

And print is a dying industry, they say, so of course every reporter latches onto the story with an icy hand and seems fully prepared to ride it all the way down.

MJ watches the news reports, and it just makes her feel...tired. 

The camera crews are predatory, circling Pepper Potts and the little girl like vultures, shoving microphones in their faces and shouting questions until some security goon in a suit starts shoving back and makes them go away for just a little while.

It's horrible.

It's—voyeuristic.

It's not why she started working at The Morning Herald, this aggressive, self-congratulatory, pseudo-journalism.

MJ has her issues with Stark Tech, with the way he runs his company and his whole John-Galt-meets-Howard-Hughes attitude towards most of everything. 

But he was a hero.

And his family shouldn't be going through all of this.

She watches the reports, and it makes her uncomfortable, the way the cameras focus on the grieving wife and child all the time, but it's also an easy enough thing to ignore.

After all, Tony Stark was _Tony Stark. _

He was fantastical, impossible, larger-than-life and an honest-to-goodness superhero.

But he wasn't a part of the real world.

Daredevil, Spider-Man—even Captain America, for what it's worth, they all have a connection to the city that Iron Man never really had.

He may have lived here—may have even built his home here—but his destiny was always aimed a little higher.

A world citizen, too lofty to be tied to any one city.

"That poor little girl," Betty says, when the newsfeed pops up and they're both sitting at their desks. "I can't even imagine, can you?"

Of course she can't. 

"No," MJ says. "No, I can't."

But then Harrington is hustling by, stressing about the deadline, and MJ immediately has to shift gears, reassure him that the latest article is still on, that the run-up looks good, that Davis will be handling the pictures of that march that's scheduled to be happening in Midtown next Tuesday, it'll be fine.

It's pretty easy to shift gears.

It's a tragedy.

But it's not really going to impact her life, she figures. 

So it's horrible, and it's tragic, and then the news reports go to commercial, and it's just another thing to put out of her mind and get back to work.

Or, it would have been.

If it weren't for the phone call.

The way it happens is like this: MJ is standing in line, waiting for the barista to call her name and scrolling idly through her phone.

It's around three in the afternoon, which means that she's on her lunch break, and she's only had just enough time to head to the nearest Starbucks along with every other working person in the city, it feels like.

Davis is at the march, which MJ suspects is mostly because Harrington didn't entirely trust her not to get caught up in the march herself instead of just remaining an objective eye behind the camera, nothing but an impartial observer.

"No such thing," she'd argued, the first time he'd used that excuse, back when she'd first started out. "Every camera is biased, and I'm always an impartial observer, anyway."

"MJ," he'd said. "No, you're not."

She guesses she can see how it might look bad for The Morning Herald, if one of their top photographers was caught marching alongside the rest of the protesters instead of actually taking pictures. 

The Daily Bugle would have a heyday with it, for sure.

But at any rate, she's kind of been benched when it comes to mass peaceful protestation, which is obnoxious, and Davis is out there instead, which is even more obnoxious.

But it is what it is, and so now she's checking her phone every five seconds, waiting for Davis to send her a first few snapshots, just so she can have an idea of what she's working with, here—

And the phone begins to ring.

MJ stares at it for a few seconds, because the area code is right, but she doesn't know the number, and anyone who knows her in real life would know better than to actually ring her phone, as opposed to an email or text.

So it's probably just a telemarketer. 

Before she can reject it or accept it, the hassled-looking barista behind the counter slams a travel cup down on the pickup area and bellows, "Flat white for Joe?"

MJ looks around, sees that no one else is moving, and figures that that's probably supposed to be hers.

"It's Jones," she says as she grabs the cup, but the place is pretty busy, and they're doing the best they can, so she's not going to be a jerk about it.

By the time she fights her way back out onto the street, her phone's stopped ringing.

It's probably just as well, MJ figures.

Last week, Flash Thompson had regaled them all with the tale of how he had kept a telemarketer on the line for an hour and forty-seven minutes while he hunted for a pen, and it's not like MJ's got that kind of time on her hands right now.

Outside, the air is cool and crisp, just starting to turn towards fall, but the sun is still warm on her face, and if it weren't so crowded, she might be tempted to just stand and breathe it all in.

She won't, though.

Her lunch break isn't _that_ long.

MJ tugs her coat closed, grips her coffee in both hands, and heads back towards the office.

She's still two blocks away when her phone starts to ring again. 

MJ glances down, sees that it's the same number, and rolls her eyes.

_A telemarketer,_ she tells herself. _Might as well get it over with_.

She juggles her coffee into one hand to grab for her phone, hits the button to accept the call, and then prepares to hear all about how her computer's been infected with a virus, or how she's won an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii, or how her Social Security number is currently being audited—

"Mommy?"

It's not what she expected to hear.

"Uh, no," MJ says. "Sorry. No moms here."

She goes to hang up—

"_No!_" the voice on the other end says. "No, wait, _wait_—"

MJ hesitates.

Whoever the caller is, they're young, and they sound panicked enough that MJ hesitates, in spite of herself, and finds herself slowing down as she walks, which almost gets her trampled by an irritated-looking business man.

"This is my mommy's phone," the kid on the phone insists. "Where is she? Please, I want to talk to my mommy!"

It's a wrong number.

Some little kid—little girl, MJ thinks, but she has no way to be sure—has misdialed their mother's phone number, and now they're panicking, clear even over the absurd amount of background noise, and how is it that a spam call would actually be an improvement over this?

"Hey, listen—I'm sorry," she says, as gently as she can manage to be. "But this is my phone. It always has been. Are you sure you're remembering your mommy's phone number correctly?"

"This is her phone!" the kid says, but there's a definite wobble in their—her?—voice now. "I want to talk to her!"

"Okay," MJ says, because the little (probably) girl sounds about one wrong word away from breaking down, and MJ's not completely heartless. "Okay." 

She steps out of the flow of foot traffic, takes shelter by one of the restaurant doors that empty out onto the busy walkway.

If she's going to do her good deed for the decade, she might as well do it right.

"Why don't you tell me your mom's name," she says. "And we'll see if we can't, uh, can't find someone who knows her, alright?"

By which, of course, she means that she can plug the name into Google and at least get, like, a workplace or a Facebook account or something useful.

"I—I don't," the little girl stammers, and MJ mentally kicks herself, because, right, of course, the kid's freaking out.

She's probably lost, MJ guesses, trying to remember her mother's phone number, but who honestly remembers actual phone numbers anymore?

"It's okay," she says quickly, and glances around like she's going to see anything that will actually help. "Look, why don't—what's your name, alright? Can you tell me your name?"

The little girl takes a shaky breath, and MJ wonders if she maybe ought to go find Betty, because she's never claimed to be good at this whole comfort thing.

"Morgan," the little girl says.

MJ pauses in her search of the street.

"Morgan what?" she asks, because something in the back of her mind is starting to ring out a warning. "What's your last name?"

It could be a boy's name, she supposes, nice and ambiguous.

But then the little girl says— 

"Stark."

And MJ feels suddenly cold.

"What?" she manages to ask, and the little girl says, "My name is Morgan Stark."

For a second, MJ doesn't know how to react.

Without her meaning them to, her eyes dart up and to the right, like she'll be able to see the newsfeed that scrolls across the corner of her desktop, like she'll be able to read the same name there that she's been seeing all week, and it takes her a moment to recover.

When she does, she asks, "Is this a joke?"

Her voice sounds stern and severe to her own ears, and she tells herself to take it down a notch, this is still a kid—

"What?"

"If this is a joke," MJ says. "It's not very funny, okay? Whoever put you up to this, it's not a very good joke."

"I'm not joking!" the little girl snaps, loud and angry, despite the earlier catch in her voice. "My name is Morgan Stark, and I want to talk to my mommy!"

It's impossible. 

It's absolutely impossible. Half the world is watching over Morgan Stark at any given time, it's utterly inconceivable that her bodyguards would just let her wander away without Pepper Potts knowing about it.

And if this really _is_ Stark's kid, then surely her mother's number would be programmed into the contact list, right?

Later, when MJ tries to decide what she should have done differently, she'll curse herself for not taking it seriously right away.

But, honestly, it's just so wildly unbelievable, it isn't so strange that her first thought is _prank_ and not _Tony Stark and Pepper Potts's kid called me by accident_.

In her own defense, it _is_ a bit of a leap.

"Okay," she says out loud. "Okay, well, I don't have Pepper Potts's phone number, so why don't you hang up and give her a call, instead? This is still the wrong number—"

"No, please," the little girl blurts, and the note of panic is back in her voice. "Please, don't hang up!"

It's barely audible, over all the background noise, like the little girl who may or may not be Morgan Stark is standing right next to the freeway. 

It's so loud.

It's so loud, and it's enough to force thoughts of a prank to the back of her mind.

"Morgan?" she says, and raises her own voice, just a little. "What's going on?"

For a second, she thinks maybe the little girl hasn't heard her.

The other end is silent for a long moment—or no, not silent, because it doesn't sound like she's standing next to the freeway, it sounds like something else, something she can't put her finger on.

But then the girl who might be Morgan answers, and it drives all thought of what the sound could be right out of her mind.

"They'll hear me," Morgan whispers, so that MJ has to strain to pick out the words. "If anyone calls back, they'll hear me—"

"Who will?"

MJ isn't sure when she actually started to entertain this idea, isn't sure when she actually started to take it seriously, but she finds herself leaning forward, waiting for the answer without remembering to breathe.

And Morgan says, "The bad guys."

MJ feels a horrible jolt go down her spine.

"What?"

"I don't want them to hear me," Morgan says, almost too quietly to be heard. "I took the phone when no one was looking, they'll be so mad, if they know I took it—"

It's still so impossible.

And yet, in a horrible way, it makes sense.

Morgan Stark's guardians wouldn't just let her wander off, not if the scenes on the news are an indication of how seriously they take their charges.

But if something were to happen—

_But surely we would have heard_—

If someone were to just take her—

"Morgan," MJ says, and her own voice sounds more strained than it did just a few seconds before. "Where are you?"

She can hear the noise of someone moving around, strange and echoey, and there's still something so off about the sounds coming down the line, she just can't quite figure out what it is, exactly—

"I'm in a car," Morgan says. "In the back."

"In the back?" MJ echoes, because there's still way too much background noise, it doesn't make sense—

"Where you put shoes and things," Morgan explains, and MJ thinks, _oh_.

_The trunk_.

If this is for real, if Morgan Stark has really been snatched up in broad daylight, then they've got her in the trunk of a car.

And she has no idea where she is.

"But there's no shoes," the girl continues, apparently oblivious to MJ's quickly-mounting horror, or at least so caught up in her own fear that she doesn't realize. "It's just me."

"Morgan—"

"I don't know where I am," Morgan admits, and MJ is alarmed to hear the wobble in her voice now.

"You're in the trunk of a car?" she asks, because she still can't believe it—doesn't want to believe it—

There's another pause then, and then a quick, quiet breath, and MJ realizes that the little girl is crying. 

"I didn't want to call before," she says in a tiny voice. "They said—we were just playing hide and seek, and they said Mommy would be mad—"

_Enough_, MJ thinks. _Enough_. 

"Okay, Morgan," she says, and steels herself for it, to ask the cruel question. "I need you to listen to me, okay?"

There's a sniffle, another quiet breath.

"Okay."

"Now, I'm going to ask you one more time," MJ says. "And then I'll believe you, whatever you say."

There's another moment of silence, and MJ imagines that the little girl must have nodded then.

"Are you sure this is for real?" she asks, almost desperately, like maybe this will all go away if it's only a prank. "This isn't a joke?"

She hears a huff from the other end—

And then the background noise goes quiet.

Or, no, it doesn't go completely quiet, but it drops off suddenly, like walking into another room and closing the door—

"We're not moving," Morgan whispers. 

MJ's mind races.

"What?"

"The car," the girl nearly breathes. "It's not moving."

A car door slams, somewhere nearby, and MJ takes a helpless step forward, as though there's literally anything she can do.

"Wait," she says, and doesn't dare raise her voice. "What's happening?"

"I can hear them," Morgan says, and her voice jumps up a note, breaths coming faster. "They're going to find the phone—"

"No, they won't," MJ promises at once. "We're not going to let that happen, okay?"

But Morgan is panicking, her breaths coming in short, harsh gasps that sound so wrong from such a small child.

"They're going to find it," she pleads. "They're going to know—"

"No, they won't," MJ says.

_Think_, she tells herself. _Think, Jones, think._

_The phone. _

They have to hide the phone, first things first.

"Okay," she says. "I need you to put the phone down—facedown—somewhere where they can't see it, okay?"

She keeps her own voice steady and even, like she's not currently freaking out, like this isn't the most ridiculous thing she's ever tried to think her way through. 

It could still be a prank.

It just really, _really_ doesn't feel like one.

"Okay," Morgan says, doubt clear in her voice even as her breathing begins to even out once more.

"You can just put me on speakerphone," MJ offers. "I'll be really quiet, but I won't go anywhere."

Morgan hesitates. 

Then MJ hears her fumbling for the buttons on the phone's screen, a loud tapping and thumping noise that fills her own earpiece.

When she's on speakerphone, Morgan must still be holding it to her face, because the sound is suddenly overwhelming—

"Please don't hang up."

MJ's heart breaks, just a little.

"I won't."

Morgan sniffles again, and MJ wonders if she nodded or just sat staring straight ahead. 

"Do you promise?" she asks, and there are footsteps coming through the speaker, someone heading for the car.

"I promise," MJ says, and means it, one hundred percent.

There's more fumbling, and then a sliding noise, like Morgan's pushed the phone to hide it behind the wheel well.

And then someone opens the trunk.

MJ hears it happen, hears the sound of the trunk being popped open, but almost before the trunk is open, Morgan is shouting, voice high and terrified and determined to be frightening.

"I want to go home—" she starts, but a new voice—the owner of the footsteps, MJ guesses—says, "Oh, Jesus, is he out of his mind?"

Another person snorts in laughter, and MJ realizes the hand that isn't holding her phone is curled so tightly that her nails are digging into the palm of her hand.

"You wanna be the one to ask him?" the second voice asks, the one who laughed.

It's two men, one with a British accent and one without, just a sort of bland American accent that could be anywhere from Brooklyn to Balboa, nothing worthwhile, nothing that can be used to identify either man.

"Do you have any idea," the British man says, "the kind of manhunt that's going to be out for this child?"

"Relax," the American says. "Toomes'll take care of that. You just worry about getting the kid out of here."

The British voice scoffs. "That's not going to be easy."

"No, but it'll be worth it. Huh, sweetheart?" the American voice adds, apparently turning on Morgan once more. "You going to help us talk to your mommy?"

"I want to go home," Morgan says again, without missing a beat.

"You will, sweetheart," the British accent says in what MJ thinks is supposed to be a soothing voice. "You will. As soon as your mommy talks to one of our friends."

"I want to go home, _now!"_

MJ doesn't know exactly what happens next.

But there's a sudden scrambling, like a flurry of movement, and then the American accent says, "Alright, take it easy, sweetheart—" and Morgan is suddenly shouting.

"Let me _go!"_ she snaps, amid the noise of a scuffle. "I want to go home—let me go!"

"Whoa, watch out—"

And then—

_And then_—

_Crack!_

The sound fills the speaker, and MJ claps her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, because she's watched enough trashy television, observed enough dumb arguments, to know what a slap sounds like.

Someone just hit Morgan.

MJ bites down on her hand, and she knows she must look like a mad woman, standing on the sidewalk and damn near biting through her hand, but no one notices, no one else even has a clue—

_Quiet, you promised you would be quiet— _

_If they touch her—_

It's all she can do not to snap then and there, tell the two men that they won't get away with this, or something equally cliche. 

But she can't. 

She can't say anything.

It won't do anyone any good, if the other two find the phone, if Morgan Stark loses her only means of communication, of calling for help.

She can't do anything.

It's like she's only there to listen. 

Morgan is crying softly, and in the end, it's what keeps her from screaming at the two men, because Morgan is still alive, still awake, and all that matters is keeping her that way.

"Damn," the American man says. "Did you have to hit her that hard?"

"Kid was getting on my nerves," the British man grumbles.

They talk about it so casually. Like this is just another simple job, like working at a desk or filing papers.

"Well," the American man sniffs. "You'd better hope you didn't mess anything up, or there'll be hell to pay."

_Mess anything up._

This is Tony Stark's daughter, after all—Pepper Potts's daughter—who knows what that brain of hers will be worth someday?

But the British man just scoffs again.

MJ can't speak. 

_Quiet_, she reminds herself. _You have to be quiet, you're no good to her if they find the phone._

But it's so hard.

It's against everything she's ever done, everything she's ever been, to just stand there and hear it happen and not even try to make it all alright.

"Do you have the paperwork ready?" the American man asks. "They'll be needing it soon."

"Nearly," the British man says. "Needs some last minute revisions. And there are a couple canisters of gas, Toomes said they'll be shutting down gas stations soon."

"Well, then," the American man says, still so casual and dismissive. "We better get going, yeah?"

The British man must agree, because Morgan yelps as the trunk of the car slams closed, and then MJ can hear the footsteps of the two men retreating once more.

One of the men says, "Did you know about this, going in—"

And then their voices are too far away to be heard. 

She still waits, though.

Just in case.

She waits, and Morgan sniffs a few times, and then the fumbling, sliding noise of the phone being picked up, and Morgan says—

"Hello?"

"Morgan," MJ says, and her own voice is choked with relief. "Are you alright?"

Morgan sniffles once more. 

"I told you I wasn't joking," she says.

MJ closes her eyes.

_Alright, yeah_, she thinks. _So you maybe had that one coming. _

"You're right," she says. "You're right, I'm sorry. Are you alright?"

Of course the kid isn't alright.

She just got backhanded by some fully grown man, of course she isn't _alright_.

"I'm okay," Morgan says anyways, and MJ takes a deep breath, forces herself to focus, think positive. 

It's not exactly her strong suit. 

She's really more of a glass-half-empty kind of person.

But the men are gone.

The men are gone, for the time being, and Morgan is tougher than any little kid reasonably should be, and smart enough to take a phone off one of the men without them even noticing, it's got to be enough of a head start.

It's got to be enough—

"Good," MJ says, and plugs her headphones into her phone so that she can search for the nearest police station as she walks. "Can you still hear me?"

"I can hear you."

"Good," she says again. "Now, did you know either of those two men?"

"No," Morgan says.

She hesitates a moment, and MJ waits, almost slows her pace again.

In a very small voice, Morgan admits, "They said they were friends of Daddy's."

_Oh_.

Great.

This is just great.

Because a regular kidnapping wasn't good enough, they had to throw in some pissed-off possible supervillains, or at least some disgruntled former acquaintances with an axe to grind against Tony Stark. 

The man is _dead_, for God's sake. 

Can't they just let him rest?

_As if this wasn't going to be hard enough,_ MJ thinks. _Friends of her father's_—

"Oh," she says out loud.

She doesn't think saying any of the other things would be very helpful.

"They said they could help me hide," Morgan explains. "We were only playing hide and seek."

Smart as the girl may be, she's still only just a child.

Still too trusting.

But where was her mother?

Where was the guy in the suit in all the interviews, why hadn't anyone been able to see this coming and stop it in time?

What do they want from Morgan—from Morgan's mother?

"So you'd never seen them before that?" she asks, just to be clear.

"Who were they?" Morgan asks, which pretty much answers that question.

"I don't know," she says. "But I'm going to help you find out, okay?"

There's a police station on 35th, she knows, because Flash had complained about getting a driving ticket and how he'd had to slog through all the traffic—

She can't get on the subway, obviously, and she doesn't want to risk a taxi, in case the reception gets cut off near the buildings.

On foot is still her best option. 

"How?" Morgan sounds doubtful.

MJ doesn't blame her.

"I don't know," she admits. "But I'll figure something out. We both will."

"Don't hang up," Morgan says.

It's the second time she's asked, and she's being so brave, considering she's a literal child who's been stuffed into the back of a freaking car trunk.

"I won't," MJ says, and moves even faster down the crowded street. "I promise, I won't hang up until you're safe, okay?"

"Okay."

And just like that, Morgan believes her.

"Okay," MJ echoes.

There's a pause, and then a shuffling, like Morgan is shifting around inside the trunk, trying to find a way to pretend that it's a normal place for her to be.

Then she asks, "Who are you?"

Oh, right.

In all the craziness, MJ realizes, she may have forgotten to actually identify herself.

"My name's Michelle," she says. "But my friends call me MJ."

"MJ," Morgan repeats.

"Yep," MJ says, trying her best to sound cheerful and upbeat, which, again, is so not her usual style, but she can at least try, in this sort of situation. "And you're Morgan."

"It's nice to meet you."

From the way Morgan says it, it sounds a lot less like she means it and more like something that she's memorized about a billion times over as the polite thing to say. It almost makes MJ smile.

"Nice to meet you, too," she says instead.

The line falls silent as she waits, impatient, on a street corner.

Then, just as the light changes, her phone buzzes angrily, and she almost drops it, but recovers in time, looks down at the screen.

EMERGENCY ALERT, the text notification reads. CHILD ABDUCTED FROM 200 PARK AVENUE. PLEASE CALL 202-555-0103 WITH INFORMATION.

Inexplicably, MJ feels a rush of relief.

Other people know now.

Other people will be looking.

There's even a special hotline.

They're going to catch these guys.

They're going to find Morgan.

"Did you get that text, too?" she asks anyways. "Morgan?"

"Yeah," Morgan says, and her voice is louder, like she's pulled the phone closer to read the screen.

"Do you know what it says?" MJ asks, and then feels suddenly uncertain. "Is it—can you read that?"

Morgan huffs. "I know how to _read_."

She sounds deeply offended, and if this were any other situation, MJ would probably laugh, because, right, how was she supposed to know what a normal reading age was?

"Okay, sorry," she says, and almost smiles a little, anyhow. "I don't know how old people start reading, can you read what it says?"

"It says Emergency Alert," Morgan says, but she's sounding the words out very carefully, so MJ's going to go out on a limb and say that reading and reading comprehension aren't always the same thing.

"Yeah," she says. "And you know what that means?"

"No."

"It means that a lot of people are out looking for you," MJ says. "Your mom, and all of her friends, and a lot of people who are really strong and really smart, they're coming to find you, and they're not going to stop until they do."

She's not kidding.

Pepper Potts is one of the most powerful, most intelligent women in the world, and the idiots with the car have just stolen her child.

It's just a matter of time before they're found.

And even if Pepper Potts weren't enough, there's all the rest of Tony Stark—Iron Man's—flying circus, all the Avengers and all of their friends, and any one of them would be strong enough, and smart enough, MJ doesn't doubt, to save Morgan all on their own. 

But she meant what she said, earlier.

She isn't going to hang up until she knows that Morgan is safe. 

In the grand scheme of things, she knows that she can't do even of a fraction of the things that any one of the Avengers can.

But Morgan called _her_, and right now she's the only one who's got a direct line of communication with a scared little girl who only wanted to play hide and seek—

So it's up to her.

She has to do whatever she can. 

She has to at least _try_.

She's not going to hang up until she knows, one hundred percent for certain, that Morgan is safe.

She can't. 

She did promise.

Some of the best people in the world are out looking for this kid.

It'll have to be enough. 

"And you," Morgan says.

MJ blinks.

"Yeah," she says, and darts across the next street, ignoring the honks from a few angry cab drivers. "Yeah, and me."

"And you won't hang up?"

She wishes Morgan would stop asking that.

She wishes she would stop sounding so uncertain every time she asks.

"No," she says, one more time. "I won't hang up."

"Okay," Morgan says.

She sounds like she maybe is starting to believe it.

"Okay," MJ agrees.

Morgan breathes out, still a little shaky from the crying earlier.

"So," she says. "What do I do?"

She's her mother's daughter, MJ thinks ruefully. 

From every interview she ever watched when she was still in high school, from every article she ever read, Morgan is one hundred percent her mother's daughter, just as much as she's her father's daughter, and it makes MJ hate the faceless kidnappers even more, because she's just a kid, she shouldn't _have_ to be as brave as Tony Stark was, as clever as Pepper Potts always is.

"You don't have to do anything," MJ says. "You just keep talking to me and wait for someone to find you."

She's a little bit worried that Morgan will argue, will try and fight her own way out.

But instead, she just takes another deep breath, like she's willing herself to sit still, to be quiet. 

"What are you going to do, then?" she asks, and her voice is barely above a whisper.

Just a few more streets—she can see the flag that flies in front of the precinct, just a few more streets away—

"I'm going to go find someone who can help," MJ says, and crosses the last street towards the police station on the corner.


	2. Chapter 2

The last time MJ was at the Midtown police station, she was taking pictures for Betty's article about the precinct's recidivism rate as linked to allegations of corruption among parole officers, so there's a not insignificant chance that they might recognize her.

She's not sure, in this context, if that'll be a good thing or not. 

But it doesn't matter. 

This goes a little (a lot) further than personal grudges.

"Okay, Morgan," she says. "I'm outside the police station. I'm going to go inside, and we're going to find someone who can help you, alright?"

"Okay," Morgan says, and MJ nods, even though she knows that the girl can't see her.

"You're just going to need to tell them everything that's happened," she tells her. "And then they'll—they'll be able to get you home."

She hopes.

They have to be able to help.

That's their whole gig, isn't it? 

"Okay," Morgan says again.

_Someone has to be able to help_, MJ thinks.

So she takes a quick breath, pushes through the front door—

Instantly, she knows recognition won't be a problem.

The station is in complete chaos—there are cops rushing back and forth, and she'd like to believe it's because of the Morgan Stark kidnapping, but there are also a lot of people being processed, so there must have been something else going on, something way more pressing, if possible—

The sound is echoing off the walls, and the lobby is crowded with some protesters from the march, some just general lawyer-looking types, and everyone's talking very loud, and the lady behind the reception desk is looking supremely overwhelmed, and this is the worst possible version of this scenario that MJ could have hoped to find—

"Oh, God," she mutters, forgetting she's on the phone for a second. "Why are there so many people here?"

"MJ?" 

Morgan's starting to sound worried, and so MJ shakes her head, forces herself to focus on the major freaking elephant in the room.

"No, it's okay," she says. "Hang on, I'll find someone."

She tries to flag down the first uniform she sees, some young guy rushing past with a clipboard clutched like a lifeline. 

"Excuse me—" she starts, and he plows right past her without breaking stride.

MJ blinks, finds another cop—a woman, this time—and actually manages to get a few words out. 

"Hey," she says. "Excuse me—"

"Ma'am," the officer says. "We're a little busy here—"

"Yeah, no kidding, but I—"

But the officer is already gone.

"It's—it's important," MJ says weakly, but she doesn't think anyone hears her.

"MJ?" Morgan asks again.

"Yeah," MJ says. "I know."

She doesn't want to physically grab onto a cop in the middle of whatever-the-hell-this-is, because she's pretty sure that that's a great way to get herself charged with assaulting an officer, but she's starting to lose her cool, and she still doesn't know how long she has before those men in the car come back—

There's another officer heading her way, and MJ decides to go for it and practically leaps in front of him, so that her shoes squeak wildly on the linoleum floor.

The officer draws up short, clearly annoyed. "Ma'am—"

"Yeah, I know, you're busy," MJ says, before he can tell her the same thing. "That emergency alert, I've got information—"

That gets his attention.

"Oh," he says, and then his eyes go suddenly wide. "_Oh_."

MJ huffs out a breath, and she can feel herself sag in relief.

"Yeah," she says. "Oh."

"Okay," he says, and then waves for her to follow him through one of the doors behind reception. "Just go right on through, Detective Toomes will want to hear everything you can give him."

_Someone will be able to help_.

"Thanks," MJ says, halfway through the door already. "I—"

Then his words catch up with her, and she freezes.

"Wait," she says, and her hands feel cold where she clutches at her phone. "What—who?"

The officer backtracks a few steps from where he's waiting for her to follow.

"Detective Toomes," he says, impatient. "In charge of the case."

_Relax. Toomes'll take care of that_. 

_Toomes says they'll be shutting down gas stations_.

_Relax_.

_Toomes will take care of it_.

"Toomes," MJ repeats, numb with horror.

And someone else says, "That's me."

MJ's heart skips a beat, and then there's a man striding across the bullpen towards them.

He's probably around her parents' age, slightly balding, with a friendly expression that looks a little tight around the edges.

He favors his right side as he walks, and he smiles politely as he approaches, but MJ stares at him with something like horror, and all she can think is _was it you? _

_Were you the one who planned all this? _

"MJ?" Morgan whispers, and MJ has to fight the urge to hide her phone, hide her earphones.

But Toomes is waiting, and he's going to know something is off if she doesn't cover her tracks right now. 

"I saw—there was a hotline," she says, stalling for time. "I could call in—"

"No need," Toomes says easily. "The calls route to me. Now, ma'am, you said you had some information that could help?"

All calls route through him.

The head of the investigation, the one leading the search for Morgan Stark—

_Relax. Toomes'll take care of that._

She _cannot_ tell him.

"I—yeah," MJ says. "I, um, yeah, that's right."

_Think, Jones, think_—

Toomes is still waiting.

"Well?" he prompts, and then gives her a vaguely patronizing smile that sets her teeth on edge. "Please, ma'am, any information you have could help save that little girl's life."

The unbelievable smugness of this asshole.

"Right," MJ says. "Right, of course."

Her mind races, and Toomes is watching her so closely, like he's waiting to hear whether she'll expose him, whether she knows—

"I, um. I saw a black car," she says. "Loitering in front of the tower. I didn't see the plates, but it was there when I passed this morning."

If she hadn't already suspected him, MJ wonders, would she have noticed the way his face relaxes ever so slightly?

Would she have noticed the fact that he's relieved?

She doesn't know, and that's the scary part, is that he genuinely seems so honest.

"I see," he says, and she nods.

"Yeah, that was—" She clears her throat, glances around. "That was it."

Toomes nods, professional and brisk.

"Well, I'm sure that'll give us a lot to work with," he says. "Thank you. Can I get you to fill out a statement?"

"Sure," MJ says, and makes herself nod back, the same clipped show of professionalism. "Of course."

She waits until Toomes turns to lead the way to someone's desk, she guesses, and then she turns and all but runs for the door.

No one stops her.

No one really even sees her go.

If Toomes notices—if Toomes even cares, he doesn't try and stop her, so she slips back out of the police station with the only line to finding Morgan Stark, and nobody really seems to care at all.

The police—

_Okay_, MJ thinks. _So the police are out_.

If it was just Toomes, there might be a way around it, but he's in charge of the case—all pertinent information is going to be funnelled right through him—

"Morgan," MJ says, and checks that her earphones are still securely in her ears. "You still there?"

"I'm here," Morgan says, quiet and more serious than any child her age has any right to be. "Was that one of the bad guys?"

MJ glances back over her shoulder.

She can still see the chaos inside the station, through the glass front doors, and she doesn't want to linger, in case someone did see her go, after all, in case Toomes is somehow watching her still.

"Yeah," she says, and turns her back on the great glass doors. "Yeah, I think so."

Morgan is silent for the space of a few moments.

Then she says, "So now what?"

_Now what?_

It's a great question.

The men with the car—it's been about ten minutes since they went inside, and she doesn't know how much longer she and Morgan will get before they're back—

And the police are not an option, not anymore, which means it's just her and Morgan again.

MJ starts heading south without any real plan, but she needs to be moving, she can come up with the next steps as she walks.

_Now what?_

"I don't know," she says. "I don't know, I—I just need a second to think—"

"MJ?" Morgan asks, and MJ realizes she's starting to ramble and shakes her head, forces herself to refocus.

"Yeah, sorry," she says. "I'm still here, we'll figure something out—"

She's heading south.

She's heading towards Stark Tower.

_Of course. _

Of course, what had she been thinking?

She just has to make security understand, just has to hand her phone off to someone there, they'll know what to do—

"MJ," Morgan says again, more urgent this time.

"Stark Tower," MJ says. "We'll go to Stark Tower, someone there can help—"

"_MJ_," Morgan hisses, and it's finally enough to stop MJ's train of thought. "Something's happening."

_Something's happening_. 

MJ almost stops in her tracks, but there's no time, and so she pushes herself faster, she just has to get to Stark Tower—

"Something—what do you mean?" she demands, heart pounding in her ears. "Morgan?"

Quietly, so quietly that she can barely be heard, Morgan whispers, "There's another car."

_Another car? _

MJ strains her ears, and now she can hear the crunching slide of tires over asphalt, the sound of brakes easing a car into a stop.

There's another car.

"Okay," she says, fighting to keep her voice steady. "Okay, just do like we did last time, hide the phone, it's going to be okay—"

Morgan doesn't need to be told twice. 

She stashes the phone, and MJ pushes past a gaggle of high-school-looking kids, nearly knocks one of them over—

"Hey, watch where you're going!"

She raises a hand in apology, but she's not really paying attention at all, because she can hear the car doors slamming, can hear voices arguing, even if she can't make out all of the words—

The men from before are there, arguing with the newcomers, and whatever's going on, they're not happy about it.

"Fine!" one of the men shouts at last."Fine!"

And then there are footsteps, and a sound she can't place, and then Morgan gives a tiny little squeak of terror as her car's trunk is wrenched open again. 

"Sorry, sweetheart," the American man says, still too angry to really sound sorry at all. "You're gonna have some company."

Company?

_No_, MJ thinks. _No_—

The British man snorts.

"Not for long," he mutters, and MJ doesn't get the joke, but the American man must, because he makes a disapproving sort of sound and says, "Come on, Steve."

There's that sound again, the one she can't place—

_You're gonna have some company_. 

_Oh._

It's a scraping sound, the sound of something heavy and unmoving being dragged across a hard surface.

It's the sound of a dead body.

_Not for long_.

Not dead, then.

Not yet.

But soon.

They're going to put a dying man in the trunk with Morgan. 

MJ wants to be sick.

There's no time for that.

The speaker fills with a thumping, fumbling noise as the men try to heft the body into the trunk—

"No!" Morgan pleads, and MJ presses the back of her hand hard against her mouth to keep from screaming, too. "No, _please_—"

The men don't listen to her.

Of course they don't. 

Why would they?

_Stark Tower._

She just needs to get to Stark Tower. 

The trunk slams shut once more, and the men are still talking among themselves, arguing about something else now, but they're moving away, at least, so MJ takes her hand from her mouth, waits for Morgan to find the phone again.

It takes longer, this time.

There's less room to move around in.

"MJ?" Morgan says, after a few moments.

She's not crying, but she sounds very, very close to it.

"I'm here," MJ says at once. "I'm here, what's happening?"

"There's—they put a man in here," Morgan says, and then, in the tiniest voice imaginable—"I think he's dead."

MJ knew it was coming.

But hearing Morgan say it in that quiet, matter of fact tone—

"Oh, God," she says, and she doesn't trip or skip a step, but it's a near miss. 

"There's—he's bleeding," Morgan says. "There's a lot of blood."

The man isn't dead.

Not yet.

Or maybe he is, but he's only just died, and the blood is still wet—

"Okay," MJ says, and she's talking to herself as much as she is to Morgan. "Okay, it's okay, do you—can you see his face?"

The girl makes a noise that MJ guesses is her trying to see the man, and then says, "It's too dark."

Right, of course it is, the trunk is closed, of course it's too dark—

"Use the phone," she says. "You know how to turn on the flashlight, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Are his eyes open?"

Morgan doesn't respond for a few seconds, but MJ can hear her moving the phone around, trying to get a better angle.

"No," she says at last. "They're closed. How do I know if he's just sleeping?"

MJ tries to cast her mind back to the CPR course she took her sophomore year of college, and immediately rejects the idea of looking for a pulse—too tricky, too easy to miss something important—

"Okay," she says. "Um—I'm sorry, Morgan, but I need you to open one of his eyes."

It'll be easier than trying to hunt down a pulse point, and at least she'll be able to give a quick answer—

_Easy for you to say_, her mind whispers. _You're not going to be the one poking around on a corpse's face_. 

"Why?" Morgan asks, and MJ doesn't blame her for sounding deeply skeptical.

"Open his eyes and shine the light on the eye," she says, complete with hand motions that no one will see. "If his—if the black dot in the middle of his eye gets smaller, then he's just sleeping, okay?"

Morgan huffs a little as she gets to work. "It's called the _pupil_."

"Right," MJ says, and can't help but laugh, just a little, which may be a sign that she's getting hysterical. "Yeah, sorry, you're right, I forgot."

Morgan sniffs, satisfied, and it's such a normal reaction, such a snapshot of what the little girl is like in normal situations, that MJ's not sure whether it makes her want to laugh again or just cry.

"He's just sleeping," she announces.

The man is alive.

Suddenly, selfishly, MJ wishes he were dead.

Not because she wants him to die, necessarily.

But if he's alive—if they put him in the trunk just in time to make Morgan watch him die—

_It would be better_, she thinks coldly, _if he were already dead_.

She decides not to share that thought with Morgan.

"Okay," she says out loud. "That's good."

"There's a lot of blood," Morgan says, as though she doesn't really see the good side of this situation, and MJ doesn't blame her.

"I—"

"Uncle Peter," Morgan says, and thumps the dying man with the phone. "Wake up."

This time, MJ does miss a step.

She trips, nearly falls, and recovers in time to keep moving, but her mind still feels like it's stuck six steps back.

"What?" she demands. "Wait, Morgan, you know him?"

"He's one of Mommy and Daddy's friends," the little girl says, like it should be obvious. "He plays with me when he comes to visit. He works with Daddy—"

"So you know him," MJ says, just to confirm it.

"Of course I know him."

_Oh, what the actual hell. _

"Okay," she says, and sounds doubtful even to her own ears. "Okay, that's...good."

Morgan thumps the not-dead guy again.

"Wake up," she says, and then, sounding just a little bit scared. "Come on, wake up!"

_Absolutely not. _

If this is about to turn into a Lion King situation, MJ's going to go completely ballistic.

She can't deal with this. If the guy's still alive, he might as well have the good grace not to die immediately. 

"Let him rest," she says—or starts to say, at least.

Because one second, there's just the sound of Morgan pushing weakly at the man who used to be friends with her father, and then—

A horrible wet coughing fills the speaker, and then the sound of someone gasping for air, breaths ragged and unsteady, and MJ stops in her tracks without realizing it, is clutching her phone tight enough to hurt—

"Hey—hey, Morgan," says the man who's not quite dead yet. "Fancy seeing you here."

MJ breathes out.

In the trunk, so far away in God-knows-where, New York, Morgan does the same.

"I thought you were _dead_."

She manages to make it sound vaguely accusatory, and the not-dead-man gasps out a weak attempt at a laugh.

"Come on," he says. "You know I'm pretty hard to get rid of."

His voice is young-ish, MJ guesses, or at least not super old, thin and frail and higher than she would have expected from someone Tony Stark's age, but she figures that could be the debilitating injury taking effect, too.

He's alive.

It'll have to be enough for now.

Somehow, though, she doesn't think he's going to be overly helpful, and so she forces her feet to start moving again, pushing her way up the sidewalk and feeling a bit like a fish trying to swim upstream.

Five blocks from Stark Tower, now.

As if on cue, Morgan says, "MJ thought you were dead, too."

She's still using that slightly accusatory voice, like this Peter person should have had the good manners to tell her he wasn't dead when they dumped his deadweight body into the trunk with her.

But the man hesitates, and his breathing is still ragged, but he manages to control the hitch in his lungs long enough to ask, "Who's MJ?" in a tone that almost sounds casual.

At any rate, his poker face—_poker voice?_—is pretty good.

"MJ is on the phone," Morgan says, very matter of fact. "I was trying to call my mom, and I got her instead."

That gets the new guy's attention.

"You have a phone—" he starts, and then, with the desperate hope of a drowning man who's just spotted a lifeline—"Morg, where'd you get this?"

Morgan sounds like she's juggling the phone, which MJ assumes means that she's moving it around for Peter the Dying Man to see.

"I took it off one of the bad men," she says, maybe just a little bit proud. "When they put me in the car."

"Morgan Stark," Not-Dead Peter says. "You are a genius."

"I know."

Morgan's not being cheerful, necessarily, but she sounds at least a little bit less scared than she did before.

One of the benefits of actually having an adult she knows, MJ imagines.

_And, you know, actually present_. 

_That probably helps_.

The crowds are getting heavier as she draws closer to Stark Tower.

She's still about four blocks away, but the little groups of tourists on each street corner are getting larger.

Stark Tower was a big draw even when Tony Stark was alive, and now that he's dead, it's about one more shrine away from being the center of a new religion.

Normally, it'd be something for her to roll her eyes and complain to Betty about.

Today, however, she's kind of got bigger priorities, so she dodges around a bunch of people who are dual wielding cameras at arm's length, grits her teeth and tries not to hate them personally. 

But then the phone is making weird noises, and MJ's attention snaps back to her earbuds once more.

"Hello?" says the man whose name is Peter.

"Hello," MJ says, and wonders if there's a protocol for how to introduce oneself in this specific situation. "Peter, huh?"

It's not like they didn't know she was listening. 

"That's me," he says. "MJ, huh?"

"That's me," she echoes.

He gives another half laugh, but it quickly turns into another horrible, rattling cough, and it's enough to force MJ's attention back to the issue at hand.

"I can't take the phone to the police," she says, before he can ask. "I already tried the station, but there's this guy, Toomes—"

"Toomes was there?" Peter demands, and for a dying man, he can still put a surprising amount of force behind the words. "Adrian Toomes?"

MJ doesn't know. 

Based off the horrified reaction, though, she's going to go with probably. 

"I guess?" she says. "Older white guy, balding, walks with a little bit of a limp?"

"That's him," Peter says, and then, through clenched teeth, "Shit."

"You said a bad word," Morgan points out, helpful.

"Yeah, I know," Peter says, but he's pretty clearly distracted. "Don't tell your mom. You said Toomes was at the station?"

That last part is directed at her, and MJ knows the next suggestion, that she try another precinct, another station.

"He's in charge of the investigation," she says, by way of explanation or excuse, she can't tell either way. "The hotline they set up, it funnels straight through him."

Peter hisses out another breath.

The light changes to cross the street, and MJ's halfway across before the last cars have cleared the crosswalk, ignoring their honks.

"Great," Peter murmurs. "That's just great."

_Yeah_, MJ thinks.

She knows the feeling.

"MJ," he asks suddenly, like he's just gotten a plan. "Where are you right now?"

"I'm headed to Stark Tower," MJ says, and holds up a hand to ward off a car as she hurries across the next street. "I'm about two streets up—"

"_No, don't!_"

The shout makes her jump, startled, and she almost drops the phone, but catches it by her headphones, just in time—

The effort seems to have cost Peter dearly, because she can hear him fighting for air for a second, trying to get his breathing back under control. 

_Don't_. 

_Don't go to Stark Tower? _

It's the safest place to go, of course it is—but MJ can still hear the sudden burst of terror that had ripped the words from his lungs, and she isn't sure anymore—

The crowds are even heavier now, so close to Stark Tower, and so it's easy to slow down, slip out of the flow of foot traffic.

"There are some people there," Peter says, and his voice is so horribly weak. "You might not be able to get to Happy in time—"

"Get to _who?_"

"You can't go there," he says, ignoring her knee-jerk question and Morgan's answering gasp. "Toomes—Toomes and his people are already in the Tower."

_No, don't_—

She's been pushing the question out of her mind, partially because it isn't important, and partially because the most basic answer is fairly obvious, but also partially because she just really doesn't want to think about it—

But MJ looks down the street to where she can just see the gleaming entrance to Stark Tower, and she wonders how, exactly, Peter got hurt.

It doesn't matter.

_There are some people there. _

_Toomes and his people are already in the Tower. _

The scope of it is enough to make her feel suddenly sick, hot and cold at once.

How long have they been planning this?

How long have they been making plans, waiting for the perfect moment?

And how in any god's name are an actual child, a long-distance photojournalist, and a man on death's door supposed to stop them?

How is she supposed to stop them?

_Because let's be real, Jones_.

It's on her.

It's all on her.

If she walks through those front doors, grabs the first security guard she can find, they could help her—or they could be Toomes's.

It's too much of a risk.

If it's one of Tooomes's goons—Toomes and these mysterious _other people_—the phone will be gone before she can say _cover-up_, and then Morgan and Peter will both be left to rot in that trunk.

That's two people, now.

She has to be smart about this.

She has to at least try—

"So no police," she says, hopeless now that that one bright chance has been snuffed out. "No Tower."

Peter is silent for a moment, and Morgan is, too, so that the only sound is the slight crackle of static over her earpiece. 

"I'm sorry," Peter says at last, and MJ laughs without any real humor.

"Yeah," she says. "Me too."

The silence stretches for a few more seconds, and MJ can't help looking up the street towards Stark Tower one more time, like maybe she'll be able to find the answer written somewhere on that stupid, oversized name that takes up half the skyline, it feels like.

There's nothing.

Of course there's nothing.

At last, still too quiet and too frail, Peter says, "If the phone drops coverage, that'd be—it'd be okay."

For a second, MJ doesn't understand. 

Then she does, and she's moving again without even knowing where she's going, only that she's too furious to stand still.

_If the phone drops coverage_—

If she wants to hang up.

If she wants to leave Morgan Stark and Peter No-Last-Name to die, in other words.

It'd be okay, he's saying, like he's expecting her to—what, to thank him and hang up?

To just leave them—to just leave Morgan—

_It'd be okay_—

"F—screw you, Peter," MJ grits out, only barely remembering to watch her language. "I already told Morgan, I'm not hanging up!"

She has to keep moving.

She can head back towards her work, she thinks wildly.

Find Betty—find Betty, figure out what their next step needs to be, regroup and find a way out of this impossible situation—

How long has it been?

How much longer do they have?

The men before, they talked about needing gas, and they put Peter into the trunk for a reason, there must have been a reason they transferred him, when he was still unconscious.

_They're going to be moving Morgan. _

Morgan and Peter, by extension, somewhere far enough away to need a few extra gallons of gas, somewhere where no one will find a dead body once it's planted—

How much time do they have?

_I'm not hanging up. _

"Okay," Peter says, quiet and solemn. "Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

MJ's not an idiot.

She knows what he was trying to do, trying to give her an easy way out, forgive her for not wanting to hear the way this ends.

And she hates it, she really does, because she's still furious with him for suggesting she bail like that, but a tiny, traitorous part of her wishes she could take him up on it.

She won't. 

Of course she won't. 

But they need to find a way out, the three of them, a way out of this situation.

The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

And now _he's_ apologizing.

"No Tower," MJ says, instead of answering his apology.

"No police," Peter says, and something about his voice seems to be another apology, all the same.

It'll have to do, for now.

MJ nods, another little gesture that the other two can't see—there's a very good chance that they never will see—

_Think, Jones. Find a way_.

No Tower.

No police.

_Find a way_.

"The goons are still inside?" she asks.

"Yeah," Morgan says, and Peter hums a little in agreement, but then says, "Not for long."

So she's not the only one who's been doing the mental math.

"And you can't get out of the trunk?" 

It's a stupid question, a foolish, childish hope that maybe it's not really as bad as she knows it is, that maybe there's a clear way out, an easy answer for what to do next.

"He's _really_ hurt," Morgan says, like MJ didn't know, like she can't hear the slick, rattling sound of the air whistling through his lungs.

She almost apologizes, but Peter just coughs out another almost-laugh.

"No," he says, and she gets the funny feeling that he understands the motivation behind her question. "No, not yet."

"Not yet?" MJ echoes, but then Peter sucks in a quick breath, and she gets the feeling he's just made up his mind.

"Wait," he says. "You're two streets from the Tower?"

A little further than that now, spurred by her sudden burst of righteous anger, but she doesn't feel the need to share that with the class, not really. 

"Yeah," she says anyways. "On the north side."

"So you're close to the Daily Bugle?"

MJ doesn't stop, but she maybe hesitates, just for a second.

"_Yes_," she says finally, and can't quite hide her distaste. "Why?"

"I need you to go into the Daily Bugle," Peter says, and MJ hears the hesitation in his voice, even if she doesn't know the reason. "There's someone there we can trust."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick note: Peter Parker _is_ still Spider-Man in this story, but Peter and MJ don't know each other, so she's got no real reason to connect "dying guy on the phone" with "friendly neighborhood Spider-Man".

Unlike the police station, The Daily Bugle is not a place that MJ has been to before.

_Like_ the police station, however, it is very much a place she does not wish to be.

Not that she necessarily dislikes any of the writers or producers at The Daily Bugle. 

It's just that The Daily Bugle is a festering, pseudo-journalistic abscess of misinformation, sensationalism, and beyond-lazy misrepresentation of fact that's one more false accusation away from being shut down in a libel suit and is also where yellow journalism goes to die.

So, yeah.

She's not the Bugle's biggest fan.

If it were up to her, she would never even think about setting foot in the building, for fear that some of the publication's shoddy practices and frankly embarrassing lack of standards might somehow be contagious—

But it's not up to her. 

The guy behind the desk looks bored as she approaches his desk, and MJ draws her coat tighter around herself and hopes to God that no one makes the unforgivable mistake of thinking that she looks like she belongs there.

"Can I help you?" the guy asks, sounding as uninterested as only an underpaid intern can manage to do.

"I doubt it," MJ says mildly. "I'm here to see a Ned Leeds?"

On her way over from Stark Tower, Peter has given her the bare bones of this Leeds character, but she still isn't sure how a "journalist" from The Daily Bugle is going to be able to help where Pepper Freaking Potts couldn't.

The kid behind the desk narrows his eyes at her, suspicious.

MJ does her best to look innocent. 

It's not her usual look.

"Yeah, okay, fine," the receptionist says, and she blinks. 

"Wait, really?"

"MJ," Peter says, tired. "Please don't question the intern."

"Right," she says. "Right, sorry, thank you—do I have to sign in or anything?"

"Sure," The Intern says. "First and last name?"

She gets a little sticker with her name printed on it, and then The Intern points her towards a row of elevators, and she thanks him again and bails.

"What if I lose reception in the elevator?" she asks, and knows she won't be brave enough to risk calling them back and setting off the ringtone.

"You won't," Peter says, and MJ frowns.

"It's a metal box inside a concrete building," she says.

"Uncle Peter fixed it," Morgan chimes in, as though this should be obvious. 

"Fixed it," MJ echoes, and wonders how, exactly, Peter is linked to The Daily Bugle.

"You won't lose coverage," Peter promises again.

The elevator doors open with a quiet _ding_, and it's an awkward time in the day, so there's no one else in the car with her, and she hits the button for the tenth floor, and then hits it a few more times for good measure, just to feel like she's doing something.

The silence on the other end of the phone feels dangerous, and MJ only makes it to the fifth floor before she loses the staring contest with her reflection in the elevator doors and asks, "Are you guys still there?"

"Still here," Peter says, and Morgan says, "Told you."

"Right," MJ says. "Right, okay, fine."

She's on the tenth floor. When the doors slide open again, the newsroom is kind of in the middle of a panic.

Which, to be fair, is understandable. 

Morgan Stark is, after all, missing.

It's a big, big day.

_Ned Leeds,_ MJ thinks. _I'm here to see a Ned Leeds_—

She grabs the first person rushing past her, says, "Ned Leeds?" in as polite a tone as she can manage, under the circumstances—

The reporter wrenches his arm free, rushes off muttering something about Jameson and deadlines and _must be out of his goddamn mind if he thinks_—

MJ lets him go.

"Is anyone—" she starts, facing the room at large. "Can someone tell me where—"

She doesn't think anyone can hear her.

Everyone's too plugged into their work, or else they're rushing around in a blind panic, and for heaven's sake, the Herald wasn't even like this when Liz Allen broke that story about the whistleblower—

"This place is worse than the station," MJ mutters, and then she kicks out the nearest chair, climbs up onto the seat and cups her hands around her mouth, phone included, as a natural megaphone—

"_Ned Leeds!_"

The room doesn't go silent.

That would, of course, be asking for too much, but MJ's gratified to see quite a few people jump, and one guy nearly falls out of his chair before his headphones arrest his downward trajectory and he barely catches himself in time to prevent self-strangulation.

"What?" he yelps, jumping to his feet and turning a full circle before he manages to untangle himself from his headphones. "Uh, I mean—sorry, that's me. Can I help you?"

MJ hops down from the chair. 

On the phone, it sounds like Morgan and Peter might be trying not to laugh.

The guy finally manages to free himself and hurries over to MJ as she sizes him up.

He's about her age, she guesses, with a round face and lines around his eyes that mean he's probably a lot more smiley than he's looking right now.

_Can I help you?_

"That depends." MJ says. "I've got someone named Peter on the line?"

She doesn't dare say Morgan's name.

Not in a place like this.

Ned Leeds's face goes pale.

"Oh my God," he mutters, and then his gaze snaps back into focus, narrows in on her. "Give me the phone."

He holds out his hand, and MJ feels a sudden, irrational burst of panic.

"I don't—" she says, without a very clear idea of why not, exactly—but she said she wouldn't hang up—she can't just walk away from this now, she _won't_—

Ned drops his hand, and Peter says, "Wait, just conference him in."

"Right," MJ says, and mentally kicks herself for blanking. "Right, okay."

She makes a writing motion with the hand that isn't holding the phone, and Ned Leeds scrambles to find a sticky note and a pen.

She scribbles down her phone number as soon as he pushes the pen into her hand, and to his credit, he understands immediately, rushes back to his desk—

Within a matter of seconds, MJ's phone is making a beeping noise, and she glances at the screen to see that there's a new call coming in.

_Hold_, one button reads, and the other one says, _Add to Call_—

She hits the second button. 

"Can you still hear me?" she asks, and thinks for one terrified moment that maybe she somehow hit the wrong button by sheer accident— 

"We're still here," Peter says, and she breathes out again. "Ned?"

"Peter!" Leeds blurts, and MJ heads for his desk, heart still thumping in relief. "You're not dead!"

"Not so far," Peter says, and he still sounds pretty beat up, but at least he sounds a little bit brighter than he did before.

"Are you okay?" Leeds demands. "Where are you?"

"I'll be fine," Peter says, which MJ thinks might or might not actually be true. "And Morgan and I are—somewhere in the back of a trunk."

There's a pause.

Then Leeds says, "What?", and MJ hears it once over the phone and once from the man sitting right next to her.

"The back of a trunk," Morgan repeats, helpful as ever.

MJ glances down in time to see Ned blink fast, like he's trying to figure out the best way to respond with the whole situation.

_Welcome to my world, pal_.

"Hey, Morgan," he says at last, careful and deliberate. 

"Hi, Ned," Morgan says.

Ned opens his mouth and closes it a few times and then shakes his head, closes his eyes.

"Peter, what's going on?" he asks. "You were going to find Beck, you two were going to—"

"Beck shot me."

Peter's voice is as cold as it's been since they tossed him into the trunk, cold and wounded and full of carefully controlled fury.

Ned sits back in his chair.

"Oh," he says.

"Yeah."

"Oh," Ned says again, and MJ frantically tries to remember anyone named Beck who was ever associated with Stark—

_They said they were friends of Daddy's_.

Associated with Iron Man— 

_Beck shot me_.

The name isn't familiar.

So MJ shoves it to the back of her mind—she'll deal with it later—and nudges the back of Ned's chair. 

"Peter said you can track the phone?" she prompts, and he snaps back from wherever his mind had gone.

"Right," he says. "Right, yeah, of course, um—hang on just a second—"

He has three screens on his desk, and they all show the same odd collection of clickbait sources and empty word processing fields, but Ned does something on the keyboard that she doesn't quite catch, and all three screens go dark at once.

They go dark, and then they light up once more—MJ catches the briefest glimpse of the Stark Industries logo, and then something in a Cyrillic font and something else that looks an awful lot like Xhosa, but it's too quick to be certain—

All three screens are blinking, scrolling through a bunch of databases that mean absolutely nothing to her, but which look extremely dubious from a legal perspective, and the screen on the far left looks like it's starting to formulate a primitive map of the Eastern Seaboard—

MJ stares. "What exactly do you do here, Leeds?"

"God, what _don't_ I do?" Ned mutters, without looking up from the keyboard. "I'm the guy in the chair."

He says the last bit like it's an inside joke, and she doesn't get it.

"Meaning?"

He sighs. "Meaning that I'm an underpaid article mill with a mountain of student loans."

It's not really an answer.

But it feels they're dancing around an important topic, so MJ lets it drop, shrugs and turns her attention back to the monitor screens, leaning on the edge of the desk.

"Could be worse," she says, and Ned scoffs.

"How?"

"Try being an underpaid photograph mill," she suggests.

It's just a joke, mostly, but Ned glances sideways up at her, and then does a double take.

“What did you say your name was?” he asks, and his hands aren't moving on the keyboard anymore.

“I didn’t," MJ says, and then, suddenly exasperated. "Michelle Jones. MJ. You really want to do this now?”

Now it's Ned's turn to stare.

"You're M. Jones," he says.

It's the name she uses on her pictures.

They really, really don't have time for this.

"Yeah, that’s me," she says, dry as she can possibly manage. "I mean, you want to talk about our childhoods? You could tell me about your father?"

Ned rolls his eyes, and MJ nudges his chair again.

“Can you track the phone or not?"

"Working on it," he grumbles, fingers flying over the keys once more. "Parker, it's M. Jones."

"Yeah," Peter says. "Caught that."

"My reputation precedes me," MJ says. Then, a second later, her mind finally connects the dots, and she wants to let it slide, she really, really does—

"Did you just call him Parker?"

"It is his name," Ned says, real smug for someone within chair-pushing distance.

"You're Peter Parker," MJ tells her phone.

"Guilty," Peter says.

Because this all just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

"You're the one who keeps getting those pictures of Spider-Man."

It sounds like an accusation, which it maybe sort of is, just a little. 

"Um," Peter says, sounding appropriately nervous. "Yes."

She rounds on Ned again. "Which means that you're the anonymous writer who gets all the scoops."

It's nearly driven Betty to homicide, how the only publication that can ever manage to get an in-person interview with everyone's favorite local superhero is literally The Worst news agency in the whole freaking city, and they've got pictures, too, and all they ever use them for is stupid conspiracy theories and idiotic smear campaigns, _MJ, they're ruining the good name of all reporters_—

MJ never bothers reading the articles that Betty emails her—usually followed by a string of expletives and furious emojis—because every "scoop" Veritas ever writes about inevitably just annoys her—

But she likes the pictures.

Even for such a garbage publication, she'd always thought Peter Parker's photographs were really, really good.

"Uh-huh," Ned says.

He doesn't sound as worried as his buddy.

MJ adds this to the list of issues to put on the back burner, because how is Morgan so chummy with someone who helps drag her dad's protege's name through the mud on a regular basis?

_Back burner,_ she tells herself. _You've got bigger issues right now_—

As if reading her mind, the monitor on the left makes a mechanic sort of whine, and the map it was trying to assemble starts to glitch out.

_Like that, for instance_.

"But it's just a burner phone," Ned mutters, and then shakes his head, frowning between the screens. "It shouldn't—it's like it's...being blocked. Somehow."

"Yeah, and it's pretty old, too," Peter (Parker) says, like he was expecting this answer. "Can't you just—"

"No," Ned says.

"But what if you—"

"Already tried."

He hits a few more keys, glares when the middle screen flares red in response and then pushes back from the desk and sits there scowling at all three monitors.

"So?" MJ prompts. "What does that mean?"

"It means—it means I can't track the phone," he says, worry and frustration clearly apparent in equal parts. "At least, not down to anything—worthwhile."

"Worthwhile?"

"I can get a cell tower," Ned says. "That's about it."

"A cell tower," she echoes.

It's not enough, is it?

Peter (_Parker_) says, "Ned—"

Ned nods, scoots his chair closer to the desk once more. 

"I'll keep trying," he says, and then, like he's determined to sound optimistic. "We'll find a way, I promise—"

"Ned, shut up."

MJ and Ned both blink, startled, and Ned says, "What?"

"_Be quiet._"

This time, the urgency in Peter's voice finally hits the both of them, and MJ slides down from her perch on the edge of Ned's desk, heart racing so loudly that she can barely hear, over the phone—

The footsteps are coming back.

"Uncle Peter—" Morgan's voice sounds small and frightened again, and MJ hates it so, so much—

_What the hell?_ Ned mouths at her, and she waves for him to be quiet, even though he isn't speaking—

"It's okay," Peter says, his own voice barely above a whisper. "Look, why don't you take the phone, and we'll switch places, okay? You get behind me—"

They must do so, but MJ's too busy thinking _don't open the trunk, don't open the trunk, don't open the trunk_ at the unseen men to really pay attention to the noise of them trading places. 

They can't open the trunk.

If they open the trunk—if they see that Peter isn't dead yet—

Maybe she develops spontaneous telepathy.

Or maybe some higher power finally decides to throw them the slimmest bit of luck, because the footsteps approach the car—MJ's not breathing, she can't even breathe—

The footsteps pass the phone, and then a car door slams, and the engine roars to life.

"Oh my God," Ned whispers. "That's loud."

"Shut up," MJ hisses, without any real heat to it at all.

The tires spin for a second, and then the sound of the road is almost loud enough to drown out the way that Morgan and Peter breathe out at once, sounding ragged and tense, but undeniably relieved. 

They didn't open the trunk. 

For just a little while, they're safe.

Safe-ish, anyhow. About as safe as a prepubescent child and a man with a bleeding gunshot wound in the trunk of a moving vehicle full of hired thugs can ever be—

_A moving vehicle._

MJ latches onto the back of Ned's chair with her free hand and says, "They're moving."

"Yeah," Ned grumbles. "Caught that."

"No, Leeds—" She doesn't know how to get a bead on the idea that's just lanced through her mind, but it has to be important, it has to work, right? "No, Leeds, they're _moving_."

She sees the exact moment he understands, because his eyes go wide in a heartbeat.

"The cell towers—" he says, and she releases his chair, turns back to her phone.

"Okay," she says, breathless and terrified, because this has to work, it just _has_ to. "Morgan, Peter, we can track you guys as you move, as long as you stay on the line—we can at least get within range—"

Ned hits a few more keys, and a new map pops up on the middle screen.

“Jesus," he mutters. "How many cell towers are there in Manhattan?”

Apparently, there are a lot. 

Like, a whole lot.

“Aren’t there, like, regulations for this kind of thing?” he asks, but MJ couldn't care less, because this is good, this is good, this is better than she could have hoped for. 

“Not in the US," she says absently. "So where are they?”

“Give me a second," Ned says. “We don’t have—”

“There!” Ned jabs his finger at the screen, and MJ looks where he's pointing. 

“Harlem?”

Ned shrugs.

“Peter, Morgan," MJ says, and nearly laughs in relief. "You guys are in Harlem.”

“Good to know," Peter says, sounding pretty relieved himself. "You ever been to Harlem, Morg?”

“Once," Morgan says.

“Was it fun?”

“_Yes_.”

MJ does laugh then, but then the middle screen beeps, and the dot on the map that she's guessing is The Car moves to the next cell tower, and that's faster than she was expecting, given the traffic. 

“Okay," Ned says, clearly thinking along the same lines. "So you guys are definitely moving fast.”

“Which way?” Peter asks.

“South. It looks like you guys are heading south kind of fast-ish. Or at least, as fast as can be expected.”

“Fast for Manhattan," MJ says.

“Yeah," Peter says. "We’re getting a lot of starts and stops on this end.”

So there is _some_ traffic.

That's good.

That at least gives them a chance—

A chance to what?

They know where Morgan and Parker are, but that doesn't change everything—they still can't go to the police, can't risk taking this to Stark Tower, where this mysterious Beck person is waiting—

“Looks like you’re sticking to the west side, too," Ned says, voice serious enough that MJ thinks he might be thinking the same thing as she is, that they're in this alone—"You’re going to come right past us.”

MJ watches the dot move to the next cell tower, and then the next one.

And then—

A horrible jolt of fear races down her spine, freezes her limbs, like the moment of panic when Ned reached for her phone, only worse, so much worse—

“The tunnel," she breathes.

The dot on the map moves further south. Ned looks between her and the screen.

“What?”

MJ points, and the dot moves once more, one agonizing half-centimeter closer to the finish line.

“They’re headed for Lincoln Tunnel.”

Ned visibly flinches.

“What—they can’t do that!" he protests, and then he's typing madly, too fast for MJ to even guess at what he's doing.

“They’re taking them out of the city," she says, and she's pacing, feeling the pieces of the puzzle slot into their places. "That’s what that one guy said you’d need gas for—”

“But we’ll lose them in the tunnel," Ned snaps, not even turning around, and Morgan and Peter are way too quiet, way too far away—

_Think, Jones, think—_

They can't track the burner phone, not really, not once they hit the tunnel—

They can't call the police—

They can't go to the Tower—

They can't lose this call—

MJ stops pacing.

“Ned," she says, and her voice is steady enough to take her by surprise.

_Huh. _

_Guess that makes this a good plan then, right? _

_Right? _

"Ned," she says again, and he turns to face her, so she knows she sounds a little strange to him, too. "Can you track my phone?”

He frowns. “What?”

“My phone," she says, and waves it at him in explanation. "Can you track it?”

Ned looks between her and the phone. “If I’m calling you, sure—”

“You’re conferenced in, right? So track my phone.”

Ned stares for a second longer.

Then he nods, and that's really all she needs.

“MJ," Peter says. "What—”

“Stay on the line," MJ says, and heads for the door. "It’s time to call in the cavalry.”

She punches the call button for the elevator about fifteen times before the doors chime open, and then she can't stop pacing, even as the elevator starts to descend, as she pulls up Betty's name in her contact list—

_get flash’s keys for me?_ she types, and is forever grateful that Peter somehow fixed the building's service.

To Betty's eternal credit, she doesn't miss a beat.

_lol dare I ask why?_

_its important,_ MJ says, and Betty says, _*it’s._

MJ has just enough time to be annoyed before her phone buzzes again. 

_it’s always important_

She doesn't have time for this.

_this time it's really, really important_

She shoves her phone back in her coat pocket as the elevator doors slide open, and then she _runs_.

The Intern doesn't even try to stop her, and MJ hits the front doors before the elevator doors have even closed again—

She hasn't really run since high school, but the Herald is only a few blocks away, and they've got such a tiny window here, such an impossibly narrow window—

Cars and faces flash by as she tears down the street, and with each car that blurs past, all she can think is _that could be them, that could be the car, it could be them_—

By the time she crashes through the newsroom doors at the Herald, Flash Thompson is holding his car keys at arm's length above his head and looking distinctly harassed as Betty clambers up onto a chair to try and grab them out of his hand—

“MJ said it was important!” she's yelling, and Flash holds the keys higher, protests, “MJ always says it’s important—”

“Flash!" MJ snaps, and Betty nearly falls out of the chair, but manages to recover in time to glare triumphantly at the man in question. "You want to meet Spider-Man or not?”

“What,” says Flash.

“What,” says Ned.

“_What_,” says Peter. 

Betty hops down off the chair while Flash just stares. 

He closes his mouth with a snap, and then nearly whispers, “You met Spider-Man?”

“No," MJ admits."But I’m kind of trying to save the life of the only photographer in the city who has, so that ought to be good for a few favors, right?”

“You’re talking to Veritas?” Betty asks.

“Among others," MJ says, dry. "Flash, your keys—”

He's still holding his keys above a head and only now seems to realize it.

“Is this—is something happening?” he asks, and of course they know about Morgan Stark, but they don't know the rest of it, they can't know what's going on, even she doesn't really know the whole picture—

“Yeah," MJ says. "And I’m kind of in a rush, so if you don’t mind—“

She snatches the keys out of his hand and is halfway out the door before he registers that they're missing. 

“Hey!”

“I promise I won’t wreck it," she calls over her shoulder, and the doors close behind her.

Betty catches up to her by the time she hits the lobby, and if it were anyone else, she'd just plow right past them—

“MJ, wait," Betty says, darting in front of her so that she has no choice but to stop. "Wait, what’s going on?”

She doesn't have time to explain.

But this is Betty, and MJ's not naive enough to do the whole Best Friends thing, but she and Betty are a team, in the same way Peter and Ned seem to be a team, they came up through the ranks at the Herald together—

“Go to the Daily Bugle," she says, and Betty wrinkles her nose.

“Ew.”

“_Hey_,” Ned says, and Peter says, “That’s fair.”

“Yeah, I know," MJ says. "But go to the Daily Bugle. Find Ned Leeds. He’ll explain everything, but I really do have to go—”

She ducks around Betty, and Betty lets her go, until she's just about to push through the great double doors.

“Be careful," she calls.

“Always am," MJ lies, and lets the doors swing shut behind her again.

Out on the street, there are a ton of parked cars, and Flash brags about his stupid car all the time, why has she never paid attention to the specific details?

“Okay, Ned," she says, pressing the lock button on the key fob and listening for an answering chirp. "Can you see me?”

“I see you,” Ned says, and she wonders if he did some vaguely tech-y thing to keep her call from dropping when she was inside the building. 

If her call had dropped—

“Where are they now?” she asks, instead of letting herself consider the possibility. 

“65th and Amsterdam."

MJ freezes.

“How the _hell_ are they moving so fast?" she demands, and then winces. "Sorry, Morgan.”

“_Hell_ isn’t a bad word," Morgan says, sounding confused.

“You’re so right," MJ says, and Ned says, “I guess they got lucky.”

Peter laughs.

“Yeah, that’s us," he says weakly. "Right, Morg? Lucky?”

“Lucky," she says solemnly. 

The chirp of a car locking keeps MJ from worrying about whether or not his voice sounds weaker—

She unlocks the door, slides into the driver's seat, and is pleased to see that her phone pairs with the car's bluetooth almost as soon as she starts the engine.

Not that she'd ever choose this particular car of her own volition. 

“God, Flash, this is so tacky," she mutters, and throws the car into gear.

A few cars lay on their horns as she pulls out into traffic, but she just waves over her shoulder and speeds up as much as possible in the growing rush-hour traffic.

“Okay, I’m moving," she says, fumbling her phone into one of the way-too-many cupholders, Flash, seriously. "How far am I from where they are?”

“You should be getting close," Ned says over the car's speakers. "So what exactly is the plan here?”

It's a fair question. 

“Morgan, Peter," she asks, instead of answering. "You guys remember anything about the car you’re in?”

Someone's tailing her, so she flips on her blinker, slides into the next lane, she's so not dealing with that right now—

“I wasn’t exactly taking notes when they moved me," Peter says, wry. "Morg?”

Morgan is silent for a few moments, apparently deep in thought.

Then she says, “It’s black.”

“Black," MJ echoes, looking around at the wall of cars on every side.

Half of them are black.

“Oh, and it’s got dark windows!” Morgan says, like she's just remembering.

It doesn't exactly narrow the playing field.

“That’s great," MJ says, and tries to sound like she means it. "That’s—yeah, that’s super great. Thanks.”

“Do you see us yet?” Morgan says immediately.

It's like a kick in the teeth.

“I’m still looking,” MJ says, and hates that she couldn't just say _yes_.

Some idiot tries to cut in front of her, and she jerks the wheel to swerve around them, doesn't even bother flipping them off as she screeches past just in time. 

Ned says, “MJ—”

“Yeah," she says, because his voice is serious, full of warning. "I know.”

“The tunnel’s coming up," he says.

“Yeah." MJ looks up ahead, where she can make out the first sign announcing the tunnel's approach. "I know.”

And Peter says, “Wait.”

MJ almost hits the brake, realizes what a bad idea that would be just in time, and speeds up a little instead. 

“What wait?” she demands, and she's definitely the one being a tailgating jerk now, but this is the far left lane, why even bother getting in the fast lane if you're going to go at the speed limit, _honestly_—

“Morg," Peter says. "Any chance we could switch places again?”

They must have shifted back sometime during her mad dash through the streets—switching places puts Parker closer to the lights, the way they were when they thought the trunk might open—

“You okay?” Ned asks, before MJ can decide how to ask.

"M'fine," he says.

Morgan scoffs and says, “You’re _dripping_" in a voice that sounds very much like her father's, for just a second.

Peter laughs, but it sounds tired.

“Yeah, I know," he says. "I’m sorry.”

“Peter," Ned presses. "What’s the plan here?”

“Saw something in a movie once,” Peter says, voice muffled like he's not fully facing their way anymore.

“Great," MJ says. "That’s reliable.”

“Movies are always reliable," he says mildly. "If I can just—”

He breaks off, and then there's a very distinctive tearing sound that really just can't be good in any situation.

_Where are all these people going? _

And seriously, why in God's name are there so many black cars on the road?

More vaguely unsettling noises are echoing through the speakers now, and MJ scowls at the cars around her. 

“If you’re about to John-Mulaney-Street-Smarts your way through the taillight," she says. "Can I just submit that that’s a very bad idea?”

“Tempting,” Peter says, dry, and Morgan giggles a little. “But no.”

One more tearing sound, and then a hollow sort of _crack_, and that absolutely can't be good—

“Ned?” Peter asks.

MJ stomps the gas pedal to squeeze between two cars, and is rewarded by a) a chorus of honking and b) not being behind that SUV anymore, so she really doesn't care—

“I’m here," Ned says.

“Let me know when we’re close," Peter says.

_Close to the tunnel_, MJ thinks—but they're already so close, way too close—_closer to where she is— _

“How close?” Ned asks.

“Like, same cell tower.”

Ned hesitates. “We may not have that kind of time.”

“I’m going as fast as I can," MJ says, like that'll be enough to make a difference.

“I know," Ned says. "And we still may not have that kind of time.”

Peter hisses a breath through his teeth. “How far are we from the tunnel?”

“Two blocks?" Ned guesses. "Maybe three?”

Another sign swims into her peripheral vision, and MJ says, “I’m three blocks out.”

Ned saves the best news for last.

“There’s a dead zone one block out from the tunnel—" he says, quiet and serious. "I won’t know when you’re on that last street—”

“Okay," Peter says, before the other man can spiral. "Tell me when we stop moving, okay?”

They can do that.

They can at least do that. 

“Okay," Ned says. "MJ, you’re almost right on top of them.”

Two blocks from the tunnel.

“Black car with dark windows," Morgan reminds her.

“Right," MJ says and stares around wildly, desperately. "Yeah, right, I remember.”

All she can see is red taillights. 

There are so many black cars—

“There’s so much traffic," she starts, hopeless.

One block to the tunnel.

“Peter," Ned says, voice heavy with dread. "I think you just dropped off.”

MJ swears, cuts off another car and swerves all the way to the right—maybe if she just gets to the tunnel entrance first, she can somehow spot them as they pass—

Peter says, “Ned—“

“I’m almost there," MJ pleads, urges the car just a little bit faster—

Up ahead, the tunnel is in gridlock.

“MJ—” Peter's voice snaps her attention away from the sea of red taillights. 

“Yeah?”

(She's locked in now, can't move forward or backwards.)

_MJ_—

“How good’s your Morse code?”

For a second, she doesn't understand. 

Then she's white-knuckling the steering wheel in both hands, craning her neck and trying to stare in every direction at once—

All she can see is taillights—

_How good's your Morse code? _

If they're behind her—if she did manage to get there before them—

And then—

_And then_—

A black car, maybe six cars up, a black sedan with tinted windows—

The taillights are flashing—

Three short flashes, two long flashes, three short flashes—a short pause, and then the cycle starts again—

MJ's Morse code isn't all that great, honestly.

But even she knows an SOS signal when she sees one.

Three short, two long, three short.

It's them.

“I see you," she nearly whispers, and then louder—"I _see_ you!"

“You see us?” Morgan asks, and MJ almost laughs out loud, nods before she realizes that no one can see her.

“I can see you!” she says one more time, and it sounds like a promise.

She slips her feet off the pedals, pushes herself up in her seat to squint at the car so far ahead, so close to the tunnel—

If they'd been any further ahead—

“Ned, it’s a—it’s a Mercedes," she says. "I don’t know what kind—”

“What’s the license plate?” Ned demands, and she can just picture him typing away furiously. 

“I can’t see," she says, and she can't move, she's well and truly stuck. "It’s bumper to bumper—”

“Right," he says. "Uh, I can try and pull up a traffic cam—”

The line of cars lurches forward.

“There’s no time," Peter says. "We’re moving.”

“Oh, God," Ned says.

“Oh, God," MJ mutters.

The line of cars is moving, but not back where she is, she's still boxed in, and they can't lose them, not now that they're so close—

“Flash is going to kill me," MJ announces to no one in particular. 

Then she grabs her phone, flips on the hazard lights, and shoves the door open before her brain can panic over what a dumb idea this is.

“MJ," Ned says, and Peter says, "What are you doing?”

MJ darts out onto the road, sees the grille of a car headed straight for her, freezes for half a second before the survival part of her brain shrieks at her to _move_—

She barely jumps out of the way just before the car can pancake her right onto the asphalt, dodges the tail end of some very angry taxicab, and then stumbles the last few lanes onto the shoulder— 

All around her, people are honking, cursing, screaming at her to get out of the road, _lady, are you insane, get back in the car_—

But the taillights are still flashing out their SOS, and so she ignores everything else and sprints the three or four car lengths to what she prays is a safe distance.

She can't let them see her, she's not that stupid—

The cars are moving again—

The shadow of the tunnel slides easily over the black car with the tinted windows—

“AKJ,” MJ reads, and has to shout to be heard over the chaos around her. “2974.”

“That’s the plate number?” Ned bellows back.

She nods again, hand pressed over the ear that isn't pressed to the phone. “AKJ—”

“2974," he finishes immediately, and he's got it, they've got it—

“Get off the phone!” someone yells, and MJ flips them off without looking away from the license plate. 

It has to be enough. 

They can't lose them now.

“Ned," she shouts over the traffic. "Ned, did you get it?”

“I found their VPN," Ned says, frantic. "But I can’t exactly track that in real time—”

The taillights are still flashing—

MJ moves a few steps closer without knowing what she's doing, and some of the red lights are blinking out—

“They’re moving again," she blurts. 

She has to get back to Flash's car—

But there are too many cars between here and there, too many lanes of traffic—

_We can't lose them now_—

But she can't move.

_Not now_—

She can't get back to the car—

_We can't_—

There's static on the line.

“Wait." Peter says, and there's static on the line, getting louder now. "Wait, Ned—”

_There's static on the line_—

There's static on the line, and it swallows the voices whole.

All that's left is the static.

Ned tries to speak a few times—she can hear him start and then stop again, helpless.

At last, he says, “Peter?”

There is no answer.

“Morgan?" Ned asks, voice rising in volume until it almost matches her own. "Peter?”

Still no answer.

MJ looks down at her phone.

_Call disconnected_, her screen reads. _Call disconnected_. 

“Are you guys still there?” Ned demands, like maybe this is just a joke.

MJ closes her eyes, presses her hand flat against her stomach and can't help feeling a little sick.

“Ned—”

“Can you guys hear me?” he tries, one more time. "_Please_—"

“Ned,” MJ says, and the noise that was so loud a moment before seems so far away now, muted and distant. “They’re gone.”


	4. Chapter 4

Somehow, Flash’s car hasn’t been totaled by the time she remembers she left it in the middle of the road.

That’s one little miracle, at least.

MJ can’t bring herself to feel too excited about it, though.

“We can call them back,” Ned says, voice tight and pitched too high with fear. “Once they’re out of the tunnel—”

“Ned,” MJ says.

“We can call them back,” he says again, and then, like he thinks she’s going to fight him on this, he adds, “We can at least _try_.”

MJ nods, even though there’s still no one around to see.

No one except the row after row of other cars—

“Of course,” she says, and hugs her free arm tighter around her stomach. “Of course we’ll try.”

She eyes Flash’s car where it’s still sitting in the far left lane, lights still on and blinking lazily.

She should probably get back over there. If she drains the battery, it won’t do anyone any good, she should probably get back onto the road and take care of that—

“MJ,” Ned says. “What if they find the phone?”

Honestly, they’re going to.

As soon as they get wherever they’re going, as soon as they drag Morgan and Peter out of the car trunk and realize that he’s not dead, not yet—

They’re going to find the phone.

MJ doesn’t know what happens after that.

She doesn’t say this out loud, of course, because she’s still a little shaky from the adrenaline of her incredibly stupid dash across six lanes of traffic, still a little shaky from having gotten close enough to _see_ them—and then losing them anyways—

“We can still try,” she says instead.

Ned sighs, a long exhale that sounds more like he’s trying to remember how to breathe than it does a sign of relief or relaxation.

“They’re really gone,” he says. It isn’t a question.

“They’re on their own,” MJ answers anyways.

Ned sighs again.

MJ rubs her hand over her arm, feels the fabric of her coat bunching under her fingers, and tries to look for a break in the traffic.

There isn’t one.

“So,” Ned says. “What do we do now?”

“Now?” MJ echoes, and he hums in agreement, even though it wasn’t really a question, either.

“Are you headed back to the Bugle?”

She could.

She probably should, they probably need to regroup, come up with a better plan, some step they can take to figure this whole thing out.

“No,” she says. “Betty’s on her way—she should be there soon, if she hasn’t gotten into an argument with your receptionist—”

“Right,” Ned says, like he’s only just remembered The Intern exists. “I should probably go and check to make sure he’s not being a dick.”

MJ smiles in spite of herself, reluctantly amused. “Is he usually?”

“It varies day to day.”

If there was ever the verbal equivalent of a shrug, that was it.

“Okay,” she says, and eyes the row of traffic once more. “Okay.”

“MJ,” Ned says. “What are we going to do now?”

Ostensibly, it’s the same question he asked a few seconds ago.

It sounds like it’s different, though.

Unexpectedly, MJ feels a sudden burst of annoyance, because she doesn’t know, how the hell is she supposed to know what to do?

It was just supposed to be a telemarketer call.

It wasn’t supposed to turn into—_this_.

“How should I know?” she demands, petulant and frustrated. “I mean—you’re the guy in the chair, right? You’re the one who’s supposed to know what to do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ned snaps, instantly defensive.

His tone shakes MJ out of her anger, because he sounds so uptight that it’s obvious he’s terrified, too, and so she sighs, retreats a little.

“Nothing,” she says, and hopes he knows an olive branch when he hears it. “I just meant—this isn’t exactly an everyday occurrence for me, you know?”

Ned laughs, tired and half-hearted.

“Come on, Jones,” he says, somewhere between chiding and encouraging. “You’re a reporter.”

MJ scoffs. “I’m a photographer.”

“You still tell stories.”

She thinks about that.

She thinks about the pictures she puts to Betty’s words, about the pictures Parker manages to fit to each new Spider-Man story—

On an ordinary day, it’s everything.

Today isn’t an ordinary day.

“Morgan doesn’t need a story,” she says, and Ned makes a sound of agreement.

“No,” he says. “I guess not.”

MJ thinks about it for a little bit longer.

Then she says, “You as freaked out as I am right now?”, and Ned laughs again.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I think probably I am.”

“Cool,” MJ says, and wonders if she could make it to Flash’s car before that minivan killed her where she stood. “That’s cool.”

Not worth the risk.

The minivan putters past, and she loses her window at getting back to the car.

Maybe it’s a good thing that it’s flashy, she guesses—_ha-ha, Flash-y_—since at least everyone seems to have noticed it well enough to avoid totaling it.

So that’s good, she guesses.

She paces back and forth on the shoulder, clutching her phone like a talisman and trying to think of a way out.

“I can’t go through the tunnel,” she tells Ned. “Not until I know where I’m supposed to be going.”

As soon as she goes through the tunnel, her call will drop, too.

And she’s not in the same predicament as Morgan and Peter are, she can always call Ned back, but she needs to know where she’s going, because if she gets in the wrong tube, it’s just a whole bunch of time they can’t afford to keep wasting.

“And Peter can’t just keep flashing the turn signal,” Ned says. “Someone will notice—”

He breaks off mid-thought, and MJ understands.

When she’d gone after the license plate, the same thought had been running through her own mind—if she got too close—if anyone else followed her line of sight and tried to intervene—

The men driving the car, they already shot Parker and kidnapped a child.

Somehow, she doesn’t think a few more bullets are going to weigh too heavily on their consciences.

_Someone will notice— _

“And that’s collateral damage,” MJ says, so that Ned won’t have to.

Ned’s silent for a few moments.

“He won’t want collateral damage,” he says, so certain that it has to be true.

So they won’t be able to count on any more signals from Morgan and Peter.

And that’s assuming— MJ casts her mind back over the past hour or so, tries to remember if Peter’s voice was getting quieter, more ragged around the edges.

There’s a very good chance that he might not be around to give any sort of signal—

Morgan will be alright.

She _has_ to be alright.

Peter Parker, on the other hand—

“Ned,” MJ says, because she doesn’t want to pursue that avenue of thought.

“What?”

“You have the car’s VPN,” she says, somewhere between a question and a statement.

“Yeah,” he says, and she can just make out the sound of him typing away on his keyboard.

“Who’s it registered to?” she asks, impatient.

“Quentin Beck.”

_Beck shot me_—

Ned says the name like it should explain everything, and MJ almost rolls her eyes, because again, how is it that these two from the actual garbage fire that is the Bugle know all the ins and outs of Tony Stark’s inner circle?

“Am I supposed to know who that is?” she asks.

“No,” he allows. “But Peter does.”

“Peter seems to know a lot of people,” MJ says, mild.

“Yeah, he’s good at that.”

“This Beck guy,” she presses, and eyes the tunnel that Morgan and Peter’s car disappeared through. “He got any property in upstate New York?”

“No,” Ned says immediately.

But then he hesitates, and she hears the clacking of keyboard keys once more.

There’s a pause of a few moments, and then another stunned second of silence.

“No,” he says again, and it doesn’t sound like he’s answering her question anymore.

“No?” MJ prompts.

“Um,” Ned says, sounding more than a little distracted. “No, _Quentin Beck_ doesn’t.” It sounds like one of those distinction-without-a-difference deals, and MJ frowns at nothing in particular.

“But?” she asks.

"_But_,” Ned says. “Beck had a roommate—Daniel Berkhart, his college roommate, they were best buds or whatever, on his earth—"

MJ’s mind shorts out for a second. "On his _what?_"

“But on _this_ earth,” Ned says, like he didn’t just drop a pretty major revelation. “Daniel Berkhart never had a roommate, and he passed away a few years back.”

_On his earth— _

_On this earth— _

_Back burner,_ MJ reminds herself, and how is it that all of her back burner topics are getting increasingly less and less believable?

“So?” she says, forcing her attention back to the issue at hand.

“So,” Ned says. “If Daniel Berkhart bought a place outside of Stone Ridge two months ago—”

“Where in the _hell_ is Stone Ridge?” MJ snaps, and then her mind catches up with her, and she stops pacing. “What’s the address?”

“Sending it to you now.”

Her phone buzzes a second later, and she clicks on the map link that Ned sent her—it’s a remote location, because of course it is, but it’s a destination, it’s a place to aim for—

“Got it,” she says, and clicks the little button that says _Start Trip_.

“How far away?” Ned asks, and she remembers all at once that he’s still almost half the city away, it feels like—

It’s just her.

It’s just her—

“Two hours,” MJ says, and bounces a little on the balls of her feet, eyeing the cars that roll inexorably past her.

“According to whom?” Ned asks, and she grins.

“Exactly.”

There’s a slamming noise somewhere over the phone, like someone just straight up kicked the doors in, and then she can hear people talking, arguing.

Betty’s voice says, “No, I want to talk to Ned Leeds—”

MJ laughs out loud.

“That’s my cue,” she says.

There’s a break in the traffic—

Ned says, “MJ, wait—”

“Catch you in a few,” MJ says.

She sprints across the lanes of traffic, narrowly avoids a semi-truck with its horn blaring, and dives through the open passenger window of Flash’s car—

She scrambles back into the driver’s seat, wrenches her seatbelt into place, and steps on the gas just in time to lurch out of the way of some SUV with Massachusetts plates—

“MJ—“ someone says, and it might be Ned and it might be Betty, but her luck is good for half a second, and static fills her ears as she guns it for the tunnel—

The call drops.

One second, there’s that same awful static, and then her phone chimes once, and it’s just MJ, sitting alone in the darkness of the tunnel.

_Call dropped_, her phone screen reads. _No signal. _

_We’ll call them back. _

_We can at least try_—

It’s just her.

She wonders if Morgan and Peter are still in the tunnel, packed in this awful traffic.

She wonders if they’ve made it out the other side yet.

She wonders if Ned is trying to call them back.

But it doesn’t matter.

As long as she gets through the tunnel, it doesn’t matter—

She just has to get to the house.

They’ll have a head start, of course, but maybe it’ll be like it was in the first place, maybe they’ll just leave them in the trunk of the car while they get settled—

MJ isn’t terribly optimistic about her chances facing a bunch of armed gunmen.

But maybe, she thinks, _maybe_—

If she just has a little bit of time. If she can just get them out of the trunk—into Flash’s car—

They just have to get away.

Everything else comes after.

It takes her about ten minutes to get through Lincoln Tunnel.

Ten minutes to drive 1.3 miles.

God, but this traffic really is ridiculous.

But the traffic eases at least a little once she’s out on the other side, so that’s something, right?

MJ glances at the speedometer on the dashboard and is, for the first time that she can remember, deeply grateful for Flash Thompson’s extravagant tendencies.

She steps on the gas pedal, and the car shoots through a gap in the traffic—she blurs past a gas station that’s crowded with cars and glances at her own gas gauge, but it’s alright, she should be good to make the trip there at least—

The speed limit’s around 55, she’s pretty sure.

MJ presses down on the gas pedal and watches the needle climb.

She’s not out of the city by a long shot, she can’t risk pushing it to 65 or 70, just yet, but as soon as the traffic thins, all bets are off, for real.

MJ eases the needle up to 43, which is about as fast as she can risk in the current setting, and the engine hums in response.

When she finds Peter, she decides, she’s going to make him make Spider-Man do something super nice to make up for her low-key stealing Flash’s car.

Before she can decide whether a selfie will be enough to make them even, her phone rings, and she grabs for it without taking her eyes off the road.

Then she realizes that the car is the one ringing, not her phone, and hits the button on the steering wheel with only a mild pang of embarrassment.

“I’m here,” she says, and Betty’s voice says, "MJ?"

MJ blinks, surprised in spite of herself. "Betty?"

"Oh my God—I've got her!” Betty hisses, presumably at Ned. “I’ve got her, she's here—"

"MJ,” Ned says a second later. “You're okay?"

"I'm fine,” MJ says. “I’m still here.”

"And Flash's car?" Betty asks.

"Zippy,” she says. “Also, surprisingly, still here.”

"Bummer."

Betty doesn’t sound terribly disappointed though, so MJ allows herself a small smile and says only, "He didn't have to loan it."

Betty hums in agreement.

And then there’s silence on the line.

It feels—heavy.

Important.

"So,” MJ prompts, merging into the middle lane to pass a car in the left lane. “What aren't you telling me?"

Still the moment lingers, and then finally Ned says—

"I tried calling back."

MJ doesn’t have to ask what he means. "And?"

"There's no answer."

_No answer. _

"Did you—” MJ catches herself, shakes her head. “I assume you've already tried a few times?"

It must have been why they didn’t call her sooner.

They were trying—trying and trying and trying again—to reach Morgan and Peter.

_No answer_.

"Yeah,” Ned says. “A few."

His voice is grim, realistic, and it can’t end like this, it can’t just be—_over_.

"Maybe they ran out of battery?" MJ suggests, without any real hope of that being the case.

But it could be, couldn’t it?

It could be something that simple, something that safe.

"Maybe,” Ned says, like he’s trying to convince himself as much as her.

It doesn’t sound like it’s working.

"But?" she prompts.

"The message says the line's out of service,” Betty says. “Not in use."

MJ frowns.

That feeling of dread from when she stood on the side of the road is back again, coiling sick and cold in the pit of her stomach.

"That's impossible."

"So is a non-traceable phone, these days," Ned admits, and she frowns deeper.

"This Beck guy,” she says. “Who exactly is he?"

"I don't—"

"For heaven's sake, Leeds,” Betty snaps. “We already know you and Parker know Spider-Man."

"What—that's irrelevant—"

"But even if we didn't,” MJ agrees. “Beck is apparently close enough to the Potts-Stark family to be hanging around Stark Tower in the middle of a crisis—"

"And his name doesn't show up in a search of high ranking Stark Industries associates." Betty adds that part so certainly that MJ’s assuming she already did her own research in the time between the two phone calls.

"So I'm going to go out on a limb,” MJ says, picking up her coworker's line of thought. “And suggest the possibility that he may or may not be associated with Mr. Stark's _other_ line of work?"

For a second, she thinks Ned might try and deny it.

Luckily for him, he doesn’t.

He’s smarter than that.

"Right,” he says. “You guys are journalists, too."

MJ scoffs. "That's not journalism, Ned, that's basic logical thought."

"Fair,” he allows. “But I'm not telling you who he is. I can't, for legal reasons."

He adds the last bit like it’s killing him, and that’s a weird angle to think about, the sheer amount of NDA’s Parker and Leeds must be crippled with in order to keep publishing their baseless conspiracy theories.

"Even though he shot Peter?" she can’t help asking anyway.

Ned doesn’t answer.

MJ feels a little guilty for pressing him on this, but at the same time, if there were ever a moment to break all those NDA’s, surely this would be it, right?

Betty takes pity on him first.

"That's okay,” she says, cheerful. “I'm sure we'll figure it out."

MJ nods for no one’s benefit other than her own. "We are journalists, too."

Her imitation of Ned’s voice is passable at best, but he laughs politely and lets the tension dissolve once more before quickly growing serious.

"But it doesn't make sense,” he says. “Beck's, um, talents. They aren't tech based, they're—natural?"

MJ rejects her building hypothesis that any one of the tech-based superheroes could be working against the Potts-Stark family in their civilian personas—

"So maybe one of his partners,” she says instead. “Toomes—"

Ned makes a noise that’s halfway between a scoff and a snort.

"Toomes is a pro when it comes to hardware,” he says. “But he tends to leave the software bits to other people."

Okay, so that’s him out, apparently.

MJ scowls at the road, eases the car a little bit faster—she’s up to around fifty by now, and the traffic is starting to become halfway decent finally—

Then Betty says, "Shouldn't we be calling your insider source right around now?"

"Who?" Ned asks.

MJ rolls her eyes.

"Come on,” she says. “I'm pretty sure he already knows."

"What?” Ned yelps, which is a deeply, deeply suspicious sort of response. “Why—what makes you say that?"

_Deeply suspicious. _

_Back burner— _

"Uh, because he's close to the family?” Betty tries. “And presumably he's very invested in making sure someone brings Morgan home safe."

"And Parker,” MJ puts in.

"Right, and Parker,” the other woman agrees. “Spider-Man is always good about civilians."

"We can't!" Ned blurts.

"What?" Betty asks, and MJ asks, "Why not?"

"Because Peter's the only one who knows how to contact him."

That—doesn’t really add up, either.

Betty’s clearly thinking the same thing, because she takes a few minutes to respond.

"But Peter's the photographer,” she says at last. “No offense, MJ."

"None taken."

"That's just how it works,” Ned says.

Betty and MJ don’t say anything.

For a second, there’s another awkward moment of silence, and then Ned sighs, which is something he seems to have to do a lot.

"Sorry,” he says. “But I really can't tell you more."

"Okay,” Betty says. “It's okay."

"Sorry," he says again.

"It's okay,” MJ lies. “Back burner, right?"

"Yeah,” Ned says. “Sure."

MJ swerves around a slow-moving minivan, gets honked at, and ignores the sound, eyes glued to the road that disappears beneath her wheels.

According to the map on her phone, she’s already shaved a couple of minutes off of her arrival time.

It doesn’t mean much, in the scope of two hours, but it’s a start, at least.

"So,” she asks, as another minute melts off her ETA. “What we do about Beck?"

"Until we've got Morgan back?” Ned asks. “Nothing. He can shut down all of Stark Tower, as long as he's got Morgan."

It’s to be expected.

Pepper Potts is tough as nails—she had to be, MJ imagines, to put up with Tony Stark—but she is still a parent.

Not many parents will risk their kids’ lives like that.

"So, no moves for Beck,” she says anyways, just in the hope that someone will correct her.

No one does.

"No moves,” Ned agrees, and MJ drums her fingers against the steering wheel.

"What about Toomes?" Betty asks.

"What about him?"

"You know him—know _of_ him, at least."

"He's a low-level threat,” Ned says, and then stops himself. “_Was_ a low-level threat, we thought. We were just kind of—of monitoring him."

"And now he's teamed up with Beck,” MJ says.

"Yep."

She drums her fingers against the steering wheel once more, and Betty says what she’s thinking.

"There's got to be a link."

"It just doesn't make _sense_,” Ned protests, sounding frustrated. “Toomes hates people like—Iron Man."

"Iron Man,” MJ echoes, and decides to ignore the obvious last-second-word-swap.

"So why would he team up to work with someone like Iron Man?" Betty asks.

"Exactly,” Ned says.

MJ considers it.

"And we're sure he really does hate them?” she asks. “It's not just a gimmick?"

"Yeah, we're pretty sure,” Ned says, in a tone that implies some deeper history. “The only person he hates more than Iron Man is—is Tony Stark."

He says that last bit like a revelation, and then he doesn’t say anything else.

MJ wishes they were there with her. She wishes Betty were there, so they could exchange a what-the-hell-is-happening kind of look—

But she isn’t.

They aren’t.

It’s just her.

"Ned?" Betty asks finally, so MJ knows the other reporter is just as confused and possibly just as concerned.

Ned doesn’t say anything, but the sound of his keyboard fills the line once more, typing away furiously.

"Is there a connection there?" Betty asks, almost too quiet for MJ to hear, so she imagines that they must be looking at something on one of the screens.

"There can't be,” Ned mutters, finally recovering his voice. “I just—there can't be."

"Why not?"

"Beck's not from around here,” he says, in an absent sort of way. “What would he...what could he possibly have against Tony Stark?"

He’s talking like he’s not really there in the moment, like he’s trying to work through some bigger puzzle, which is great and all, except for the fact that MJ is currently hurtling towards some unknown deathtrap in the woods at 61 miles an hour, and she _really_ doesn’t have time for him to go all Beautiful Mind on her.

"Ned,” she says.

For a second, he doesn’t answer.

Then he hits a few more keystrokes, and MJ’s about to snap at him to say something, throw her some kind of evidence here—

"Oh, God,” he says, and MJ jerks the wheel to avoid the bus that’s going way too slow in front of her—

"What?" she demands, and Ned murmurs, "Oh, God, I'm so stupid."

"What is that?" Betty asks.

And Ned says, "Daniel Berkhart."

MJ frowns, urges the car up another mile, and then another—

"The dead roommate?" she asks.

"Not so dead,” Ned says. “I guess."

"What's going on?" Betty asks, and then, off something on the screens—“Who’s that guy?”

"That's Beck,” Ned says, sounding hollow and devastated. “Daniel Berkhart is Beck—or maybe it's the other way around."

And MJ’s officially lost.

"What?" Betty says, and MJ says, "I thought you said he wasn't from around here."

"He said he wasn't!” Ned protests. “He said—the multiverse theory clearly holds—"

The multiverse theory.

_On his earth—_

_On this earth—_

_For heaven’s sake._

"Wait,” she says. “So you're telling me that some of the smartest people in the world heard _hey, I'm from an alternate planet_ and thought, _cool, no need to check on that one?_"

Ned only sputters in response, and MJ cannot physically roll her eyes hard enough to handle this level of stupidity.

"What about Berkhart?” she asks instead. “What happened to him?"

"He died in a car crash,” Betty reads off the screen. “Three years ago, after—"

She chokes off so suddenly that MJ checks to make sure the call hasn’t dropped.

It hasn’t, so she turns up the volume on the car’s speakerphone, checks her phone screen once more for good measure.

"Betty?" she asks. “Ned?”

In a voice that’s somewhere between shell-shocked and furious, Ned reads—

"After he lost his job at Stark Industries."

MJ doesn’t jerk the wheel or anything, but it’s a real near miss.

"Are you _kidding me?_"

This goes beyond stupidity, this is just arrogance, plain and simple, did no one even think to check—SHIELD, that’s their whole thing, isn’t it?

Did no one even do a simple _background check?_

"Why was he fired?” MJ demands. “Does it say?"

"Um. Suspected volatile temperament,” Ned reads, and sounds like he’s on the verge of hysterical laughter. “Behavior risk."

"For God’s _sake_,” she nearly spits. “Did no one think to check this? No one at SI recognized him?"

"He wears a helmet,” Ned says, like even he knows it’s not a valid excuse.

A helmet?

MJ runs through her mental roster of Avengers and Avengers-adjacent team members—

"The new guy," she realizes, and Betty says, "Mysterio."

"Mysterio,” Ned seethes. “Who shows up two days after Stark's death and is everyone's best friend. God, we were so stupid."

"Not you, pal." MJ snaps, and Betty says, "Yeah, I'm thinking this is really more of an Avengers-level goof, tbh."

Unbelievable.

It’s utterly unbelievable, that they should have been so complacent.

Unbelievable, that so many clever people should have made such an unspeakably _stupid_ mistake.

They could have at least _checked_—

"But it still doesn't make sense,” Ned says, and MJ forces herself to unclench her iron grip on the steering wheel, stop wasting time thinking about what should have been done—

"What doesn't?"

"Mysterio's powers,” he says, and MJ thinks of the footage she’s seen on the news, about the man who can fly, who can shoot lasers out of his hands.

_The New Iron Man_, some of the tabloids had started suggesting, and social media had flocked to him in a heartbeat—

_Mysterio’s powers_—

“Why would he shoot Peter with a gun?" MJ agrees, understanding.

"Maybe he doesn't like to use his powers on regular humans,” Betty suggests.

"Maybe,” Ned says.

MJ glances at the speedometer and realizes she’s over 65 now.

She should probably slow down—there might be police—

_Screw it_.

_ETA_, the map on her phone reads, _one hour and thirty-seven minutes._

Below that, there’s a little readout showing how fast she’s going over the speed limit, with a little flashing icon that says, _SLOW DOWN._

_Screw it_, MJ thinks, and stomps the gas petal.

There are still other cars on the road, but they’re fewer and further between now.

_Recalculating_, her map reads, in what MJ imagines is a distinctly disgruntled tone. _ETA: one hour and thirty-five minutes—thirty-four_—

_Don’t worry_, MJ wants to tell the mapping system. _That’ll change_.

She tears her focus away from her quickly climbing speedometer, tries to think back to the Beck problem—the Toomes problem—

"What did he work on?” she asks. “At Stark Industries?"

"Uh…Research and Development,” Betty reads, and MJ can picture her squinting at the screen, the way she always does when she leaves her glasses on her desk. “Imaging. That's all it says."

"Helpful."

"That's Stark for you,” Ned says. “Helpful."

He still sounds like he’s struggling to slot this into his worldview, and MJ doesn’t blame him.

She hadn’t been totally sold on the whole New Iron Man thing, but she’d seen Mysterio on the news, and she’d really _wanted_ to believe he was the good guy—

"So how do we—what does this do?" she asks, and Ned laughs.

Or at least, he gives a puff of air that sort of sounds like a laugh, but it’s too harsh and humorless to really be called by that name.

"Honestly?” he says. “Not a whole lot."

MJ understands.

"Human bias or not,” Betty says, clearly thinking along the same lines. “He can still do a lot of damage if we go charging through Stark Tower, shouting about Berkhart and Beck and everything."

"Right,” MJ says. “We can't come at him straight on."

For a few moments—or maybe a few minutes—all three are silent, trying to think of a way around this, a way to make it alright.

Then, at the exact same moment, Ned and Betty say—

"Toomes."

MJ blinks.

"Jinx," she says, just to be obnoxious.

"We need to find a link,” Betty says, and MJ can hear her rustling around, grabbing for a pen and paper, ready to get to work. “Between Toomes and Beck—or Berkhart—"

"Places they could have met,” Ned agrees, already typing. “Online forums—"

"Anything that proves they're connected."

"Who here do you like the least?" Betty demands.

"What?” It’s enough to throw Ned off his rhythm, and his typing sounds pause. “Why?"

"Because I need to steal a chair."

"Oh,” Ned says, and MJ almost smiles. “Here, I'll go grab another—”

She drives for...a while, after that.

Her ETA is dropping every few miles, but it’s still about 95 miles from Lincoln Tunnel to the place outside of Stone Ridge, it was always going to take some time.

MJ drives, and she doesn’t think about Morgan and Peter Parker, taking the same route, rattling over the road in the back of a trunk—

Ned and Betty narrate their activities for a while, but they get more and more distracted as they get deeper into the casework, and MJ’s been around reporters for a while, she knows this routine as well as anyone else.

So she lets them get pulled into the case, focuses on the space between the two car doors, on what she can handle, on what she’s going to do when she gets where she’s going.

She’ll hide the car, she decides.

If the men see her pulling up, things will get—messy.

She doesn’t want messy.

Besides, she _did_ promise Flash that she wouldn’t wreck the car—

The sun is starting to dip low outside the driver’s window as she heads north, as the buildings become fewer and far between, so that the light starts to slant through the trees that flank the road, creating weird patterns of shadow and blinding sun—

She has to get them out of there before dark.

If they get lost—Parker’s not in any shape to spend a week wandering in the woods, and Morgan isn’t either—they have to get out before dark.

She’ll hide the car—if she can just get the trunk open before anyone notices her—Morgan won’t be able to help much, if it comes to carrying Peter out—

"You're almost there, MJ,” Betty says, and MJ startles, glances down at the map, and realizes there’s less than ten miles to go.

At her speed, it’ll take a heck of a lot less than the ten minutes the map is advising.

"I know,” she says. “I'll park a little ways out, walk the rest of the way."

"You have a plan?" Betty asks.

MJ smiles thinly. "Not really, no."

"That's about right.”

Betty’s using her _everything’s okay_ voice, the way she does whenever she’s stressing over an article, but she doesn’t want anyone else to worry.

MJ wonders who the voice is supposed to be helping.

"Got any advice for me?" she asks.

"Don't get killed?" Betty suggests, and MJ smiles again, a little more genuine this time.

"Very helpful," she says, and Betty says, "You're welcome."

The light through the trees is bright enough that she has to drop the visor—she doesn’t remember turning west, but she must have, if the sun’s in front of her, right?

"If they're still in the trunk,” she says, because it’s been more than an hour, and this is still all the plan she’s got. “Then I just have to get them back to my car—"

"Flash's car,” Betty interjects.

"Whatever. And Morgan should be okay, it'll just be a matter of dragging Peter."

Betty makes a humming noise that MJ thinks is supposed to be encouraging.

But then she says, "This is a lot. Right?"

MJ feels a little guilty for dragging her into this, for making her deal with all of this, too—

"Yeah,” she says. “It's a lot."

Ned rejoins the conversation then, and it’s been an hour—it’s been more than an hour—but she’s still not ready for this—she’s not ready for what she’s about to do—

"MJ,” Ned says. “You're about a mile out."

"I know,” she says, and she’s the only one on the road, so she feels safe glancing around for a place to park. “I'm going to park half a mile out. In case they have cameras or something."

"Good thinking,” Ned says.

MJ’s glad he thinks so.

She’s not feeling too inspired, at the moment.

There has to be something—something they’re missing—something that could help.

"What kind of imaging?" MJ asks, without knowing why.

Ned hesitates. "What?"

"Beckhart—"

"Berkhart,” Ned and Betty say in unison.

"Whatever. What kind of imaging?"

"Um, it doesn't say,” Betty says, like she’s reading off the computer again. “Just that he was R&D, laid off in 2016."

"2016," MJ echoes.

She tries to remember what was going on at SI around them.

She can't remember. 

The Stark Expo—but she never paid attention to those, they were all a little self-congratulatory for her tastes—

Besides, wasn't that the year Stark freaked everyone out by straight up CG-resurrecting his dead parents? 

No one really remembers any other tech, just the memes about how awkward it was for everyone who'd paid for SE tickets just to watch Tony Stark relive his childhood trauma in HD-Uncanny-Valley-land.

_2016_.

There must have been something else, some other announcement, for this level of spite there must be something she's missing—

"Why?" Ned asks, and MJ shakes her head, refocuses.

It doesn't matter.

She can deal with that once she's done with—whatever this is supposed to be.

A rescue mission?

_A suicide mission?_ her mind suggests helpfully.

Whatever it is.

They can deal with Beck later.

For now, it's just whoever's waiting 0.7 miles from her current position, where Morgan and Peter are trapped.

"I don't know," she says at last. "Just trying to think."

0.6 miles.

"MJ," Betty says, voice sounding just a little bit wobbly.

"I know," she says, and eases the car over to the side of the roads, watches the needle drop until she's sitting at zero. "I'm here."

She’s there.

This is dangerous.

Even compared to what she’s done so far today, this is really, really dangerous.

Like, the permanent kind of dangerous.

She doesn’t want to do this.

She has to do this.

But she _really_ doesn’t want to.

"I'll leave my phone on speaker,” she says, like that’ll do a damn thing for any of them. “Just don't—you know, don't talk to me."

"MJ—" Betty says.

"It'll be fine.” MJ promises, and she tries to make her voice sound cheerful, upbeat. “At least you guys know where I am, right?"

Neither of them answer for a beat too long.

Then finally, quietly, Betty says, "Right. We know where you are."

MJ steps out of the car, closes the door and locks it, just in case, before slipping the keys into her pocket and looking at the road around her.

A few cars have passed since she parked, but it’s quiet otherwise—quiet in the way that any wooded place is, like you can’t believe it could be so quiet less than a couple hours away from the heart of Manhattan—

It’s so quiet here.

Half a mile down the road, according to her phone, there’s a private driveway, and that’ll lead her to the house, where Morgan and Peter are waiting—

They’re waiting for her.

She has to go.

There aren’t any other options.

"MJ, wait—"

MJ jumps at Ned’s voice and then fumbles her phone out of her pocket and tries not to glare, because they’d better not pull a stunt like that once she’s closer to the house—

"I'm still here,” she says, instead of saying any of that out loud.

Ned hesitates for way too long, this time.

MJ’s about to tell him to hurry up, but it’s easy to let him procrastinate for her, easy to find excuses not to march up the road and towards what may or may not be a really bad situation—

"If you find Morgan first,” Ned says, so quietly that she checks the volume on her phone. “Just take her and go."

MJ stares at her phone.

It’s not really what she was hoping to hear.

In spite of her best efforts, she realizes, she was hoping for some magical kind of all-clear, like maybe they’d found a way to topple Toomes and Beck at once, and they’d found a way to save Morgan and Peter, and she wasn’t going to have to do this, after all.

Instead—

Instead, she knows what he’s saying, and it’s not fair.

It’s not fair to ask her to make that kind of decision.

It’s not fair to put that on her—

"Ned—"

"I'm serious," he says, and MJ almost laughs, because that wasn’t the part that was throwing her off about this equation.

"Yeah,” she says. “I know."

He doesn’t say anything—what is there to say?—and MJ looks up the road to where the driveway must be waiting, and she hates this so, so much.

_It’s not Ned’s fault,_ she scolds herself. _Not your fault, not Peter’s fault—_

It’s Toomes’s fault.

It’s Beck’s fault.

They’re the ones who have done this to the three of them—to the five of them—

She has to live.

Morgan and Peter, they have to live.

Because someone has to make Beck and Toomes pay.

It has to be them.

"You want me to just leave him?" she asks anyways, and it comes out so harsh that she winces, because this is Ned’s best friend they’re talking about, of course he doesn’t want that—

"No,” Ned says at once, and then he hesitates for the space of a few more seconds. “But he would. He will."

MJ frowns. "Would what?"

"Want you to leave him."

Of course he would.

Of course the guy hanging out in the back of a trunk with a freaking gunshot wound has a martyr complex a mile wide.

_He would. He will—_

_Well, tough luck, pal._

She’ll just have to find a way to save them both, whether he likes it or not.

He’s not exactly in any shape to be taking charge, anyhow.

"Ned," she starts, without any clear idea of where she’s going with the thought.

"Peter can—he'll be alright."

Ned says it so miserably that MJ almost wants to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, at how utterly impossible it is, how completely hopeless—

"How do you know?" she asks, because laughing would be too cruel.

"I don't,” he says.

He doesn’t say anything else.

But there has to be more to it than that, there _has_ to be some sort of greater meaning, it can’t just be left like that.

"But?" MJ prompts.

"But,” Ned says, slow and regretful. “I know that if he's okay, and something happens to Morgan, he'll never forgive himself."

This again.

Quite a guilt complex on this Parker, MJ guesses.

No wonder he and Spider-Man get along so well.

Then what Ned’s just said sticks in the back of her mind, and she frowns down at the phone she’s holding in both hands—she’ll need to take her headphones out soon, just leave the phone on speaker and hope Ned and Betty don’t feel chatty—

"And what about you?" she asks.

"What about me?" Ned asks, sounding just a little confused.

"If something happens to Peter?”

_If something happens to Morgan, he’ll never forgive himself_—

"Then that's on me,” Ned says.

MJ feels that same not-funny urge to laugh again, because the implication is all too clear.

_And I'll never forgive myself._

There’s so much guilt to go around.

Good lord, this hero complex—it seems to be contagious.

_Then that’s on me._

"No, it's not,” MJ says. “Betty and I are here, too, right?

Betty’s been quiet through the “Cold Equations” portion of this discussion, but now she moves back into hearing range.

"Right,” she says, so stubborn and determined that MJ feels something almost like a real smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"No martyrs here, Leeds,” she says. “Don't go building your own cross just yet."

He laughs quietly. "Don't go looking for yours."

She’s not Spider-Man.

She’s a little more pragmatic than that.

"Deal,” she says, and means it.

It’s an easy enough promise to make.

"Leave your phone on,” Betty says, even though MJ was the one who offered to do so in the first place, and it’s not exactly likely that she’ll have forgotten—

"Will do,” MJ says, rather than say anything else. “Good luck with Toomes."

"Thanks,” Betty says, and her _everything’s okay_ voice is back in full force. “Good luck with your—everything else."

It doesn’t feel like a sufficient summation of what she’s about to do.

"Thanks,” MJ says.

The sun is slanting through the trees at such harsh angles, long and golden and blindingly bright.

There’s a driveway somewhere, waiting for her.

MJ raises her chin, tries to feel the way she did before she drove through the tunnel, before she stepped out of the car and into traffic, and tries to pretend that there’s a version of this where they all come out okay.

“Catch you in a few," she says, and pulls the headphones from her ears before slipping her phone back into her pocket and heading up the road towards the place where the driveway waits.


	5. Chapter 5

There's no one at home.

MJ sticks to the trees that flank the driveway, walks slow and careful, one foot after the other, barely even breathing for fear of somehow being too loud—

And there's no one at home.

There are no cars parked out front, there are no lights on inside the house, there aren't even any tire tracks in the gravel that lines the road.

_A mistake_, MJ thinks, and bites down another surge of panic. 

It can't be a mistake.

If they've made a mistake, they won't have the time to correct it.

Maybe she passed them on the road.

She was breaking pretty much every speed limit in existence, and a bunch of kidnappers with two bodies in the trunk would probably be playing it pretty safe in terms of road rules— 

But she would have seen them, wouldn't she?

Surely, if she'd passed them on the road, surely she would have seen them.

MJ presses the back of her hand against her mouth and tries to think.

Her ears process the sound before her brain realizes what she's hearing.

A crunching, rolling, sort of sound— 

_A car— _

_They're here. _

MJ dives for the shadows of the brush around the house, tucks herself behind a tangle of leaves and twigs and tries to make herself as small as possible.

And then the car is there. 

It rolls up the driveway, leaves twin marks in the gravel road, and then finally slows to a stop in front of the house.

When the two men get out, they're not exactly what MJ was expecting to see.

She'd expected sort of Men-in-Black-style goons in suits, with no neck and dark sunglasses and maybe a couple of scars—

Instead, the men who step out of the car are—average.

Two middle-aged white guys, one tall and thin and wearing a stupid hat and a chauffeur's uniform, the other one kind of stumpy, with glasses and a badly receding hairline.

They look like basic, run of the mill middle management types. 

They look completely unremarkable. 

But then the tall man says, "Get the kid, I'll check inside", and his voice identifies him at once as the British man.

_The one who hit Morgan_, MJ thinks, and the knuckles of her hands are white where she's clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

The other man—Receding Hairline, the one who'd stood by and watched—grumbles something about British Man always taking the easy way out, but he opens the trunk as the taller man heads indoors—

And then there's Morgan.

Morgan Stark is a small child, even for her age, with her father's dark brown hair and her mother's slight build—

MJ's seen her a hundred times on the news, she had a vague picture in her head of what the girl looked like—

But Receding Hairline grabs her by the arm and drags her out of the car's trunk, and she's kicking and flailing, but she's so, so small—

MJ's hands are shaking again, and she almost charges out from behind the trees right then and there, almost sprints across the narrow clearing and tackles him on the spot.

_Think, Jones,_ she tells herself, and stays where she is. _You have to think_.

There are two of them and one of her. 

And they still have Morgan.

If anything happens to Morgan—

She has to be smart about this.

She has to be smart. 

MJ watches as the man half-drags, half-carries Morgan across the driveway and into the house, and the trunk of the car is still open, and this is her chance, it has to be now—

She darts out into the open, crosses the driveway in a crouching, sort of run, reaches the open trunk in a matter of seconds—

And the trunk is empty. 

No, not empty. 

The shattered remains of an old-school smartphone are shoved into one corner, and there's a tool of some sort—a crowbar? No, a tire iron—pushed into the other corner, like Morgan had tried to kick it as far away from herself as possible—

And there's an awful lot of blood.

Dark, half-congealed, matted into the short, utilitarian carpet that lines the trunk's interior, pooled in a cruelly glinting puddle all along the back of the trunk—

There's so much blood.

And Parker is nowhere to be seen. 

_Well_, MJ thinks, and is surprised at her own ability to avoid being sick on the spot. _Guess now we know why they didn't call back. _

She reaches into the trunk and picks up the tire iron.

It's heavier than she thought it would be, and MJ grips it in both hands, tries to believe that it will be enough to give her any sort of advantage, any sort of an edge.

She doesn't look at the blood.

She doesn't look at the business end of the tire iron, either. 

(She doesn't want to know why it was in the trunk. She doesn't want to know why Morgan tried to push it away.)

_Okay_, she thinks. _Okay, so you've got a weapon, I guess. _

It'll be enough. 

It'll have to be enough. 

MJ clutches the tire iron and slides underneath the car.

She doesn't have a plan.

Not really. 

But she's got sort of the vague outline of a plan, and it's better than nothing, at least, so she eases herself into the shadows beneath the car and waits.

She doesn't have to wait long.

A door slams somewhere up on the porch, and then a pair of sneakers are crunching towards her—_Receding Hairline_, MJ thinks over the pounding of her heart in her ears—and she can hear the American accent muttering darkly about _Steve_ and _when he gets out here_ and _this is getting out of hand_—

MJ waits until he reaches into the trunk for the phone—

And then she swings.

She can't really get a good wind-up, lying under the car the way she is, but she swings the tire iron as hard as she can, hears the crunch of bone in the man's ankles, and he goes down with a startled yelp of pain.

Later, once MJ's had time to think it over, once her hands have stopped shaking, she'll know she got lucky.

She's very, very lucky, because he doesn't scream.

He doesn't scream, but he falls, and MJ lunges out from under the car, dodges away as the man tries to grab her, and then hits him again. 

It's not enough to really hurt him.

It's not even enough to knock him out.

But being hit over the head with a tire iron is enough to stun even the toughest bad guy, and this guy is definitely not that.

He falls back, and he's still kind of moving, but MJ sees the keys in his hand and she knows what she has to do, she _knows_—

She hits him one more time and snatches the keys away. 

Then she drops the tire iron, grabs the guy's arms, and half-drags, half-shoves him into the trunk of the car.

He tries to stir, tries to grab at her wrist—

MJ slams the trunk closed, locks it, and grabs the tire iron back from off the ground.

For a moment, there is silence.

Then Receding Hairline groans and hammers weakly on the inside of the trunk. 

MJ realizes she's shaking.

"Sorry," she whispers at the trunk. "But you are a bad guy, so, you know—"

_One down_, she thinks_._ _That's one down_.

_Do_ not _get overconfident_. 

There's still one man left.

_When he gets out here_—

So maybe the British guy will come to check on his buddy—good God, but she's lucky he didn't make more noise—she can't pull the same trick twice.

It's just a matter of practicality, if anyone gets too close to the car, they'll hear Receding Hairline and know something's up.

She has to go into the house.

No way around it.

MJ crouches next to the car, clutches her tire iron in both hands, and looks up at the house that looms above her.

_Come on, Jones_, she tells herself. _You've gotta move. _

Morgan's waiting on her.

She can do this.

The first step on the porch creaks loudly, and she freezes, but no one comes out to kill her, so MJ takes a deep breath and another step, and then another—

The front door is unlocked.

Of course it's unlocked, Receding Hairline was only going out to check on the car, he was supposed to be back in just a few minutes, of course the house is open.

MJ holds her crowbar in front of her and doesn't breathe at all as she crosses the threshold into the silent house.

It's so quiet.

Floorboards creak in the middle, she tells herself, something she'd read ages ago, and places each step so carefully, tries to stick to the edges of the entryway. 

It's an old wood cabin—but, like, the expensive version, the kind that people in Manhattan maintain so that they can boast about "getting away for the weekend" and "rustic living" and all that jazz.

In the late afternoon light, the whole house seems to be made of shadow.

_Come on,_ MJ thinks, and inches her way further into the house. _Come on, where are you? _

She makes it all the way to the kitchen before the British man reappears.

A creak in the floor makes her jump, and then the British man is walking into the kitchen, eyes glued to his phone as she stands frozen in terror.

"Just talked to Beck," he says, and he thinks she's Receding Hairline, he hasn't really seen her yet—"He says he's almost—"

He looks up.

MJ swings the tire iron.

It's not as easy as it was the first time, because he's looking right at her, and she can't hide behind the car, the way she did before—

MJ swings the tire iron, and the man ducks out of the way, so that the iron catches him on the side of the face, cuts open a stripe along his cheek—

But he doesn't go down.

This is not going to plan.

The man stumbles back, hand clamped over his cheek, and he looks more confused than anything else.

"Who the hell are you?" he demands, vaguely irritated.

MJ doesn't answer.

If the man has time to think, he has time to fight back, time to draw a gun or get away or call Beck again and tell him that they've been found out—

She can't let him have time to think.

MJ takes a moment to breathe, feels the fear and the helplessness of the last few hours, feels the way that Morgan had screamed and the way Peter Parker had coughed and choked and struggled to breathe—

And then she attacks.

It's not a very graceful fight. MJ's seen Black Widow fighting on the news, seen the Scarlet Witch and Captain America and even the ubiquitous Spider-Man, all fluid and efficient and looking like something out of a movie, and this is definitely Not That.

It's a lot of swinging wildly with the tire iron, forcing the man back, shrieking like a banshee to try and pretend at a strength she definitely doesn't feel—

The British man isn't a trained fighter, either, and it's the only reason she isn't dead yet, but he still manages to catch her wrist before she can hit him again, wrenches the tire iron away and throws her to the ground—

MJ kicks his kneecap backwards, scrambles to her feet as he goes down, and he hits her once, twice with the tire iron before she kicks him again, and then again and again—

It's not a very graceful fight.

It's not even a very dignified fight.

But it's quick and it's terrified and it's desperate, and in the end, MJ's legs are longer than the British man's arms, even with the tire iron—

She kicks him again, watches his head snap back against the floor, and the tire iron clatters out of his hand—

He doesn't move.

MJ kicks him a few more times, just to be certain.

He's still alive, she's pretty sure.

But there are no car trunks this time, and MJ looks around until she finds a kitchen closet, and then she takes the tire iron back and holds onto it like a talisman.

Her head hurts.

He might have hit her head, she's not a hundred percent sure, and her ribs are aching, and one of her ankles is throbbing where he hit her with the iron, and her back feels like it's going to be one giant bruise, tomorrow. 

She doesn't have time to worry about that now.

She's not done yet.

"Okay," she whispers, and pushes her hair out of her face.

Her hands come away sticky with blood, and she stares at them, uncomprehending.

_Oh_, she thinks. _Guess he got your head, after all. _

She drags the British man into the closet, stuffs him inside in an undignified lump, and then drags a chair over from the kitchen table and wedges it under the doorknob, just in case.

By the time he wakes up, they'll be gone, she hopes, but just in case—

"Okay," she says again, and tests the door to make sure that it doesn't turn. "Okay, you just stay there."

She pushes on the chair, checks that it doesn't move.

"Please don't wake up," she tells the closet door, and then she breathes out, shaky, and turns back to the empty house.

It's so silent. 

"Hello?" she calls.

There's no answer, of course. 

Still, it would have been nice if there was.

MJ takes a few steps, winces as her ribs twinge in protest, and then wraps her arms around her middle and heads down the hallway. 

The first two bedrooms are empty, and MJ leaves the doors open, keeps limping her way through the growing shadows. 

The last door is locked. 

MJ tries the door, looks down and sees a basic push lock, along with about a billion deadbolts, and then her hands are shaking again.

"Morgan," she calls. "Morgan, are you in here?"

There's a scrambling noise from the other side of the door, and then—

And then—

"Go away!" Morgan shouts, and MJ slumps against the door in relief.

"Okay," she says, and rushes to throw the bolts open, one after another. "Okay, hold on, just hold on for two seconds, I'm getting you out of there—"

The door flies open, and MJ nearly falls, catches herself just in time and looks around wildly—

"Stay back!"

The voice comes from under the bed, and MJ drops to her knees, looks under the bare mattress and the cold iron frame—

Morgan is crouched with her back against the wall, and she's got one hand out in front of her, palm flat and fingers splayed—

Like a repulsor cannon, MJ realizes, and feels her heart break for the fifteenth time. 

Like her father. 

"Oh," she says, because she can't think of anything else, but they don't have time for this, they have to leave. "Morgan, it's—it's okay, it's just me—"

She probably looks like a mess, and it's probably not helping Morgan calm down any, but they really do have to go, she doesn't know how long the kitchen door will hold—

But Morgan drops her hand and frowns out at her.

"You're MJ," she says, and MJ could cry, she really could.

"Yeah," she says instead. "That's me. You ready to go? I've got a car parked just down the road—"

Morgan still doesn't move.

"What about Uncle Peter?" she asks, and MJ's suddenly glad that she left the tire iron in the kitchen.

"Right," she says, and then, even though it's the slimmest of slim chances. "Do you know where he is?"

Morgan shakes her head.

"They took him," she whispers. "When we stopped in the woods."

MJ sits back on her heels, ignores the way that the motion sends a stab of pain through her ankle.

"They took him," she echoes, and Morgan nods.

"They took him away," she says in a tiny voice. "I think they hurt him."

The blood in the trunk—

_The tire iron_.

"It's okay," MJ lies. "It's okay, we'll find him."

(They won't.)

But she promised she would find Morgan, get Morgan out first—

With a jolt of realization, MJ remembers that Ned and Betty are still on the line, they've been listening this whole time—

They have to get out of there.

They can call in the cavalry later.

For now, they have to run.

_We'll find him. _

_No, we won't. _

"Okay," she says out loud. "Come on, let's go."

She holds out her hand, and Morgan scoots out from under the bed, takes her hand and nods once.

They make their way hand-in-hand back through the dark hallway, and MJ knows she's still shaking a little, so she forces herself to stop, forces her breathing to even out.

They almost make it.

They really almost make it.

But then they don't. 

They've just reached the kitchen, and MJ's just had time to be grateful that there's no noise from the cabinet yet—

Then there's the screech of tires from the front driveway, and Morgan freezes, and MJ does, too, shrinking back into the shadows—

"Morgan?" someone calls from outside.

They must have seen the car—

"Morgan!" 

There are footsteps pounding up the front steps, and MJ pushes Morgan behind her, under the kitchen table, looks around for her tire iron and doesn't see it—

Then the front door flies open with a crash, and there's a man framed in the doorway, looking around wildly. 

"Morgan!" he shouts, eyes scanning the darkness. "Where are you?"

"Do you know him?" MJ whispers, and looks down in time to see Morgan nod.

"It's Daddy's friend," she whispers back.

MJ's heart stops. "What?"

Morgan darts out from under the table—

"Morgan, _wait_—"

"Mr. Beck!" Morgan shouts, and the man whirls around, looks right at them—

And then he _smiles_. 

"Morgan!" he breathes, and drops to one knee as Morgan flies across the room and tackles him in a hug. "Thank God you're alright!"

_When he gets out here— _

_I just talked to Beck_—

How could she have been so stupid?

MJ stares, sick with horror.

Now that he's no longer silhouetted against the light from outside, she can see the costume, the armor and the cape and general superhero look he gives off.

Beck looks up, and their eyes meet over Morgan's head.

_Think, Jones, think._

MJ breathes in, out, in again.

Then she smiles, too, and clasps her hands together behind her back to hide the way that they're shaking again. 

"You're Mysterio," she says on an exhale, and smiles wide enough to hurt. "Oh, thank God, we were so scared—"

It's like the station, with Toomes.

Beck relaxes, not so much that it's obvious, not so much that she'd even see it, if she wasn't looking—

But he relaxes, just a very little bit, and the whole all-American-hero vibe amps up as he gives another dazzling smile.

"It's okay," he says in a soft, reassuring voice, and he really sounds like he means it. "You're going to be alright, miss."

He looks like a hero.

He really does look like a hero, brilliant white teeth and a great head of hair, tall and handsome and a friendly, honest face—

He doesn't look like a kidnapper.

He doesn't _look_ like a monster. 

Morgan pulls back, looks up at the man who put her through hell for the last however-long, and she's so trusting that it makes MJ want to scream.

Instead, she stretches out her hand behind her back, slow and careful, until her fingers brush against the tire iron, where she left it on the kitchen table. 

"Mr. Beck," Morgan says. "They took Uncle Peter—he was hurt, we have to help him—"

"We will," Beck promises. "Trust me, your uncle is going to be just fine."

_Liar_.

MJ curls her fingers tighter around the iron and catches Beck's gaze, trying to look frightened and relieved and grateful and non-threatening all at once.

"We have to get her out of here," she tells him, and it's not a lie.

He nods, stands and holds out his hand for Morgan to take, and for one terrifying moment, MJ thinks he's going to pick her up, carry her on his shoulders or something—

He doesn't, but he glances back and gives MJ another reassuring smile.

"Follow me," he says, and she does.

She doesn't try to hide the tire iron, because there's no use, and she doesn't think it would be out of the question that she would bring it along, even if she did trust him, even if she didn't know—

"You're Mysterio," she says, as they head back through the hall, vacuous and trusting. "You're the one who can fly and shoot lasers."

"That's me," Beck says in an offhanded kind of way.

Something doesn't make sense.

It feels like everything's moving in slow motion, but it really only takes a few seconds—

Mysterio can fly.

Beck took a car.

Mysterio shoots lasers out of his hands.

Beck shot Parker with a gun.

_What was he working on? _

_Some kind of imaging. _

_And hadn't 2016 been the year_—

The BARF system—

_Tony Stark's parents— _

Some kind of imaging system.

_Oh_, MJ thinks. _Oh_.

It feels like slow motion.

But it only takes a second.

"It's not real."

She doesn't mean to say it out loud. The second she does, she nearly bites through her tongue, she didn't mean to say it out loud—

But Beck stops anyways. He stops, and he's still holding Morgan's hand in his, and he's still smiling as he turns to look down at MJ—

"What?" he asks, pleasant and insincere.

His eyes drop to the tire iron in both hands.

He's not the British man.

If he attacks her—if he attacks Morgan—she won't be able to luck her way into another knockout, this is a _superhero_, not some middle-aged grunt—

Beck's expression goes cold in half a second, and MJ knows that they're out of time.

He's fully turned towards her, takes half a step in her direction—

There's no more time—

"Mr. Beck, look out!"

Beck whirls around to face Morgan as she screams—

He turns his back on MJ—

And MJ swings the tire iron as hard as she can.

The force of the blow sends him reeling, and Morgan wrenches her hand free as he staggers—

MJ swings again, like it's a baseball bat, kicks him hard in the chest, and he goes down.

She hits him again, and he doesn't move.

He doesn't move.

"I tricked him," Morgan says, and she's not gazing at Beck with trust and adoration, not anymore.

_I tricked him. _

"Yeah, you did," MJ says, and heads for the door. "You did really, really well."

Morgan isn't following her.

"He shot Uncle Peter," she says.

She looks like she wants to follow Beck back to where he's fallen, and MJ catches her hand.

"He did," she says. "Which is why we have to leave now—"

She tries to pull the girl after her, but Morgan tugs her hand free, glaring at Beck where he's still not moving.

"He _lied_ to us."

"Morgan, come on," MJ says, and pulls on her arm. "We have to go."

Beck isn't the British man, or Receding Hairline. 

When he wakes up, they need to be as far away as possible.

"Morgan, _please_—"

Finally, Morgan relents.

They race the last few meters to the door, off the porch and down the steps, and they've just passed the car when there's a mechanical whirring, but no machines in sight—

_There_—

A blur of light, something like a refraction, something's not right—

And then there's a car heading right for them.

Out of nowhere, literally out of nowhere, but there's a car barreling towards them, swerving out of control—

"Look out!" MJ yelps, and pushes Morgan to one side, leaps out of the way just in time, back towards the house—

And the car is gone.

The car is gone, there was a car here just a second ago—

"Morgan!"

She reaches out, and Morgan's clinging to her hand as they both look around wildly.

"What's happening?" Morgan asks, voice little and frightened once more.

"I don't know," MJ says, and realizes she's backed them up until they're almost at the steps again. "I don't know, but we have to go—"

"Morg?"

MJ and Morgan spin around.

And MJ feels her blood run cold.

_Some kind of imaging— _

_It's not real— _

_Oh_, MJ thinks. _Oh, fuck you, Beck_.

Tony Stark stands in the doorway, looking battered and bruised, but every bit as suave and confident as he ever did in real life—

Tony Stark.

Larger than life, every inch the hero.

Alive.

Morgan's hand slips out of MJ's, and MJ's too horrified to move, too horrified to stop her.

"Daddy?" she whispers.

Tony Stark smiles.

"It's not real," MJ says weakly, and Tony Stark just stands in the door and smiles—

"Hey, kiddo," he says, and Morgan's moving.

"Daddy!" she cries, racing up the steps—

"Morgan, wait!"

Tony Stark takes a step back, and then another, and Morgan chases blindly after him—

"Come back!" she pleads, and it's enough to shake MJ out of her horrified trance.

"Morgan, don't—"

Morgan's inside the house—

Tony Stark meets MJ's gaze—

The door slams shut, and both Starks are gone.

MJ throws herself at the door without even realizing she's left the driveway, tries to throw it open, but it won't budge, it won't move, it's locked, it's stuck—

She backs up a step, hits the door at a run, and it crashes open with a noise that seems to shatter every sound record in existence as she stumbles through—

The house is gone.

No, it's not, it can't be, she's still standing there, can still feel the ground beneath her feet.

But she's standing in darkness, in total, complete darkness, and she can't even see to the end of her own arms—

"It's not real," MJ whispers, and then louder, in case Morgan can still hear her. "None of this is real!"

No one answers. 

There's a rumbling sound, coming on too fast, and MJ whirls around in time to see a train headed right towards her—

_It's not real_, she thinks. _It's not real, it's not real— _

But the train blares its horn, and the ground is shaking, and she tries to jump to one side, feels something crash into her back—

The train's hit her—no, no, it hasn't, the train isn't real, she's only fallen—this isn't _real_.

MJ pushes herself to her feet, looks around wildly and can't see a thing—

"Beck," she shouts, arms outstretched as she feels her way along the wall. "I know this is a trick!"

And someone right behind her laughs.

MJ whirls around, but there's no one there—

"Is it?" says a voice in her ear, barely inches away. "You willing to bet?"

There's a rush of air, a rush of movement, and then the house is back, but the hallway is too long, the ceilings are too tall, the hallway is far too long—

"MJ!"

The scream comes from the door at the end of the hall.

"Morgan!" MJ sprints for the door, throws it open—

Beck's there, and he's got a gun, and Morgan's there, too, looking so little and so afraid—

"No," MJ whispers, and Beck just grins. "No, don't. Stop—please, let her go!"

Beck pulls the trigger, and MJ screams, and Morgan screams, too, but then there's another scream from back along the hall, and this isn't real, none of it is real—

"MJ!"

Morgan is screaming, somewhere far away, she can't find her— 

"MJ, help me!"

Beck is gone, and she gets the briefest glimpse of an empty room before the shadows swallow it up, and she lurches away from the door, following the voice.

"Over here!" Morgan begs—

MJ stumbles blindly towards the voice, and she _knows_ it isn't real, she knows it's another horrible illusion—

"Beck, stop this!" she shouts, and if she closed her eyes, would that make this easier?

Someone far away is laughing—

"MJ," Morgan pleads, over her shoulder and at the end of the hall and back in the room she just left all at once. "MJ, _please_—"

MJ can't listen to this.

She can't—

"This isn't real," she hisses at her own stupid brain, and it isn't until the ache in her head becomes unbearable that she realizes she's got her hands clamped over her ears—

The voices are all around her, screaming and begging and crying and afraid—

MJ tries to move and stumbles into the sharp edge of a table, can't take another step for fear of running into something worse—

She had a tire iron—

But it's out in the driveway.

She had a plan—

But she can't even think straight.

The darkness around her is moving, and everything is screaming, and something crashes into her legs so that she falls, and the world moves around her so that up is down, and she doesn't dare try to stand—

Morgan is still screaming, and MJ hears other voices that might be Betty and might be Ned, screaming at her from somewhere so far away that she can't make out what they're saying—

She can't move, she can't remember how to breathe, and she gasps for one breath after another, feels something wet on her face that might be blood or might be tears—

_Morgan_, she thinks, and isn't sure if she says it out loud. _Morgan, where are you?_

"MJ—"

_I can't_.

"Please—"

_This isn't real. _

"Help me—"

_Morgan, I can't— _

"_Look out!" _

The shout comes from right behind her, and then there's an almighty crash, a blur of motion, and someone crashes into her as the world glitches in and out of focus—

A robot-looking thing falls out of thin air, and then there are hands on her shoulders, pulling her to her feet, and the house is glitching around her, so that she can just make out the outline, if she squints—

Someone's hands are on her shoulders still, and MJ looks, tries to make sense of what she's seeing, what she's hearing—

She knows that voice.

"_Parker?_" He's got an awful plaid shirt with a blood stain on it, and he looks like he's been beaten half to death, and he can't be an illusion, because why would Beck pick someone she's never even seen before?

Peter Parker, who isn't dead and somehow is still alive and who is still holding her shoulders and wearing bracers on each wrist, nods.

The bracers—

_Oh_, MJ thinks, and feels something in the back of her mind just kind of go click. _Oh_.

Parker nods, and it's enough to jolt her back into the present, and she shrugs his hands away, takes a step back now that she can see the house once more.

"Are you real?" she demands, and he blinks.

"What?"

"Beck," she starts to say, but then there's a roar of noise as the ceiling caves in—

"Get down!" 

Parker pushes her out of the way, and she catches his wrist, pulls him after her—

The illusions start up again.

The ceiling caves in, and then the world rocks sideways, and MJ jumps back a step before she can stop herself—

Parker is looking around wildly, one hand raised to ward off the falling rubble around them, and MJ can feel his wrist beneath her hand, and she clings to the one thing she thinks she might actually be able to trust—

"It's not real!" she shouts over the chaos, and Parker snaps his head around to stare at her. "Beck is human—a regular human—it's all a projection!"

Parker looks around, and MJ ducks as another shower of rubble cascades from the ceiling—

_Wait_.

The image is—off.

Somehow, the image is off, like the perspective is slightly out of step, like she's standing just a little to the side of where she's supposed to be.

"A projection," Parker echoes, and from the way he's staring around, she knows he's seen the same thing.

But it wasn't like this before, it was more complete before, a more perfect illusion—

MJ looks down at where she and Parker are still clutching at each other's arms, hard enough to leave bruises.

And she finally understands. 

"Parker," she says, at the exact same moment that Parker says, "He can't trap us both."

He's real.

He has to be real. 

If he isn't real, then she has nothing.

No one to help her.

He has to be real.

MJ lets go of his arm, and he looks at her with something almost like a smile.

Then he turns, crouched low in the way she's seen on the news a hundred times before—

Spider-Man leaps up off the ground, and MJ has enough time to think, _well, really, who else was it ever going to be?_ before the world is made of mirrors and the nearest one shatters.

"Beck!" Parker yells, and MJ charges after him, watches the way that the world warps and glitches around her—

"Where are you?"

Her own voice echoes strangely, but she keeps her gaze on the mirrors around her as they warp, growing more and more distorted.

She's got to stay close to Parker, she knows.

Too much distance, and Beck can just spin two separate illusions, keep them trapped in the chaos from before.

But Parker—who is alive and who is somehow also Spider-Man—ducks around a flock of birds that are just a little too off to make her want to flinch away, shoots a web at something she can't see, and another hunk of machinery clatters to the ground.

A drone.

It's a drone, they must be surrounded by them, surrounded by the drones—

The drones are projecting the illusion.

Destroy the drones—

So of course, that's when the drones open fire.

There's hardly any warning, just a _click_ right before the weapons engage, but it must have been enough for Parker.

Something catches her around the waist and yanks her to one side, and then the drone blasts are tearing up the ground where she stood a second before. 

They target Parker.

Of course they do, they'd be foolish not to, but the drones are all targeting Parker—

And MJ's out of the illusion.

Not one hundred percent, not entirely, but it's like looking through static at an old television screen, like the image is just out of focus—

_Beck_.

She can finally see Beck. He's standing across the room, with a death grip on Morgan's arm, but his other hand—

She hadn't been paying attention to his costume before.

But there's a gauntlet on his hand, and something flat and rectangular—

A screen.

He's controlling the illusions with a screen on his gauntlet.

Beck's attention is focused on Parker, on Spider-Man, on the obvious threat in the room.

MJ starts to move.

She unwinds the spider web from around her waist, moves slow and careful and quiet, inches her way across the floor. 

Parker destroys another drone that she can't see, and then another.

There are pieces of metal and wood—broken furniture and machinery—all around them, and MJ stops, picks up a splinter of shiny metal that's about the length of her hand, something that used to be part of a chair.

She's got a plan—

She thinks she's got a plan—

Morgan sees her around Beck's Cape, and her eyes go wide—

"MJ!" she shouts, and MJ's maybe-a-plan up and dies out the window.

Beck whips around, snatches Morgan up off the ground—

"No!" MJ yelps, and Parker cries, "No!"—

They've disappeared. 

They're gone. 

The room is empty, and this must be another illusion, but the room is _empty_, and it's a lot easier to cloak one thing than it is to make a whole new environment—

"Morgan!" Parker calls, turning in a half circle, eyes huge and terrified.

_The door_, MJ realizes.

"Parker, the door!" she blurts, and he's there in a heartbeat, and she races for the back door, if she can just get there first, she can block him off, they can keep him from escaping—

There's a rush of motion—Parker shouts, "Behind you!"—

And a hand closes around her throat.

Someone's hand is around her throat, and her feet aren't even touching the floor, she can't breathe, she can't _breathe_—

Beck holds her at arm's length, and she can hear Parker screaming in rage, can just see him fighting something she still can't see—

Beck is there—

She can't breathe.

_Morgan_—

_Where is Morgan?_

MJ's hands scrabble uselessly against Beck's gauntleted arms, and she tries to kick, but the world is growing dark—

_The splinter_—

She still has the splinter. 

Beck's face is so close to her own, and she still has the splinter—

Parker is still surrounded by drones, and now that Beck's got her dead to rights, he doesn't bother with the illusions, so she can see how many there are, there are so, so many—

MJ blinks back the growing darkness—

Beck grins, certain and triumphant, and his face is so, so close—

MJ grips the splinter tight in one hand, and then she stabs it down and through Beck's arm.

The screen on his gauntlet shatters—

She drives the splinter in deeper, and Beck _screams_.

He screams, and then he drops her, and MJ hits the floor on her hands and knees, gasps in one shuddering breath after another—

"You," Beck snarls, features twisted with hatred and rage. "_You_—"

He never gets to finish the thought. 

There's a blur of blue and red, and then Parker knocks Beck sprawling to the ground, and MJ takes one more deep breath, looks past them both to see that the ground is littered with shattered drones. 

MJ breathes, and all is silent, but she can't rest, not yet. 

Then Morgan's voice says, "Is he dead?"

And MJ lets herself fall.

She doesn't black out, not exactly, doesn't faint or do anything nearly that embarrassing.

But every muscle in her body goes slack, and she slumps forward, almost hits the ground face-first—

Parker catches her.

He catches her, helps her put her arm over his shoulder, and MJ feels a moment of guilt for hanging off a very-nearly-almost-was-dead guy for support.

Then she thinks, _oh, right, superhero_, and lets him help her back up to her feet.

He's a little shorter than she is, so it's easy to lean on him.

Morgan is standing in the middle of the room, eyes huge enough to swallow up half her face, but she's alive.

She's alive, and so is Parker, and so is MJ, somehow.

_Is he dead? _

"No," Parker says, and Morgan makes a face that's somewhere between relief and disappointment. 

MJ tries to speak, but it comes out too scratchy, so she has to clear her throat, try again. 

"You alright, Morgan?"

Morgan nods, and then she's staring between MJ and Parker with those too-wide eyes, so MJ knows they must both look like death warmed over.

"MJ?" Parker asks, and she nods, tries to pretend that her throat isn't aching.

"I'm fine," she rasps. "You?"

"Yeah, you know," he says, and his face is pale and he's leaning on her almost as much as she's leaning on him. "Doing great."

He webs Beck to the ground before they make their way outside.

As they pass through the hallway, MJ spots a mess of webbing on the kitchen cabinet door, and she's willing to bet that the trunk of the car will look more or less the same way.

"Nice work," she says, and Parker tries to shrug, until they both have to suck in a breath at the pain of the movement.

"Just in case," he says instead, and nodding would be too painful, so MJ just laughs a little and calls it even.

They make it out of the house just as the sun disappears below the horizon, and the air outside is cool and crisp and just beginning to fade into night. 

The stairs are a bit of a struggle, but Morgan hops back and forth like she's trying to help, and they make it all the way down the steps before MJ's ankle hurts too much, and she doesn't really want to be standing anymore.

So she sits on the bottom step, and Parker sinks down beside her, and Morgan's there on his other side, and they're all alive, they're somehow all alive.

It's not cold out, not just yet, but it will be, soon enough, they need to start thinking about how on earth they're going to get home—

"So," MJ says, and it comes out too scratchy and hoarse. "You're Spider-Man, huh?"

Parker laughs.

Morgan giggles, and Parker laughs, and they both sound as exhausted as she feels, but Parker leans back to rest on the steps above them and grins tiredly.

"Guilty," he says, like it's a big confession, like she wouldn't have figured it out sooner or later, given just enough time.

She thinks about it for a few seconds.

Then she says, "So you make your living selling your own selfies to the Daily Bugle?"

"He _does_," Morgan says gleefully, and Peter makes a deeply wounded sort of noise in the back of his throat, like he can't believe they're both being so mean to him.

"Is that judgment I hear?" he asks, all mock outrage, and MJ shakes her head.

"Not even a little bit."

Parker grins again, and the woods around them are silent in the last moments of daylight.

She's so tired.

She's so very, very tired.

"So," she says at last. "What do we do now?"

Parker stretches, winces at the pain, and looks sideways up at her.

"I don't suppose you have a phone?" 

MJ laughs. 

She can't help it.

She really just has to laugh.

"Funny you should ask," she says, and pulls her phone from the pocket of her coat.

The screen is cracked.

It's a miracle it isn't completely broken.

She swipes her thumb across the screen, looks at the blinking call indicator.

_Call time_, her phone screen reads. _Two hours, forty-seven minutes, thirty-three seconds—thirty-four—thirty-five—_

Less than three hours, since she left Lincoln Tunnel.

Less than five, probably, since she stood in line to get that cup of coffee that, now she thinks about it, she probably left on the street somewhere outside the coffee shop.

Things always happen so quickly.

The speakerphone icon isn't lit up.

Must have happened—sometime earlier, MJ guesses. 

She hopes it was early on.

She hopes they didn't have to listen to all of it.

But she raises her phone to her ear, winces as her hand bumps against the side of her face, and does her best to make her voice sound normal, casual—

"Betty?" she asks, and her throat feels tighter, in a way that she doesn't think has anything to do with Beck. "Ned?"

"_MJ!_" Betty's voice blurts immediately. "You're alive!"

"Are you okay?" Ned demands. "Where's Morgan? Is Peter there?"

MJ laughs out loud, but her eyes are stinging, and so she blinks hard, smiles past the lump in her throat.

The shadows stretch out long around them, and if she turned her head, she knows, she would see Parker, looking bloodied and battered but still alive, and Morgan, looking shaken and jittery but still whole and unharmed, and they're all still alive—improbably, unbelievably, they're all going to be okay—

'Yeah," MJ says, and smiles into the phone, even though she knows they can't see. "Yeah, we're still here."


	6. Chapter 6

**NYPD Implicated in Morgan Stark Kidnapping Case**

_Adrian Toomes, NYPD, helped Quentin Beck in plot to extort classified information from Stark Industries, new report confirms_.

By Betty Brant

Oct. 24, 2019

Updated 2:21 p.m. ET

NEW YORK CITY — In the week since Morgan Stark's dramatic kidnapping at the hands of Quentin Beck, also known as "Mysterio", Stark Industries representatives have released several statements detailing Mr. Beck's motives, as well as his history with Stark Industries. 

Today, the latest Stark Industries report confirmed what sources at this publication have already alleged: that Beck was working alongside high-ranking officers in the NYPD to derail the initial investigation into Morgan Stark's disappearance.

Adrian Toomes, police deputy chief with the NYPD, was arrested today on charges of conspiracy to kidnap and obstruction of justice. As deputy chief of police, Toomes was access to all information regarding the Stark case, and is believed to have prevented information that would have led to its resolution from being acted upon.

Quentin Beck is currently being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center, awaiting trial at the end of this month. Toomes could face trial within a few weeks of his co-conspirator, but neither man's lawyer responded to requests to comment on the matter.

At the time of his arrest, Mr. Beck made clear his frustration with Stark Industries for the company's continued cooperation with the team of vigilantes known as the Avengers, as well as with associated team and support members. 

The Stark Industries report released today addressed some of those concerns, but ultimately reaffirmed the company's decision to withhold classified technology from the federal government.

"We are proud to work with the federal government on matters of national security," the report stated. "However, due to the extremely sensitive nature of the projects demanded by Mr. Beck in his ransom demands, we do not feel that it would be in the interests of the general public to surrender these projects for federal use."

The report has led to speculation that the "sensitive" projects included in the initial ransom demands were primarily surveillance projects, but Stark Industries has declined to comment on these rumors.

Instead, while official publications from SI have been limited to press releases, SI CEO Pepper Potts has hinted on several social media sites that she plans to increase Stark Industries' production of public access technology.

This announcement has been met with some criticism by opponents of Stark Industries, who claim that by flooding the market with open-source programs like last year's S.T.U.D.I. system, SI is hurting its competitors ability to generate positive press for their own launches.

"What you have in this situation is essentially a monopoly on the press," a representative for Hammer Tech said in response to a request for comment on the speculation. "When Stark was alive, he dominated the media's attention, and now his company is continuing in the same grand tradition."

Hammer Tech, a long-time competitor of Stark Industries, is no stranger to media attention. Justin Hammer, the former CEO of Hammer Tech, is currently serving year eight of a twelve-year sentence on conspiracy to commit murder.

With the arrest of Adrian Toomes and the implication of several other high-ranking NYPD officers, however, it seems only logical that Stark Industries will continue to "monopolize" public attention as the date for Quentin Beck's trial approaches.

"Of course we intend to pursue this matter to the fullest extent of the law," the Stark Industries report continued. "We are grateful to Spider-Man for his safe return of Miss Stark, and would like to extend that gratitude to any and all members of the public who contributed to her timely recovery."

At the time of Morgan Stark's safe return, there was some speculation that Spider-Man (pictured above) may have been assisted by one or more members of the public, but no such Good Samaritans have come forward as of the time of writing.

Read the full Stark Industries press release here.

_(Photograph of Spider-Man credit: M. Jones, copyright 2019.) _

* * *

**Exclusive: Spider-Man an Accomplice? Stark Industries Continues to Deny Link Between Spider-Man, Kidnappers; Pushes for Tech Handouts Instead**

By Ned Leeds

Oct. 24, 2019

It's been a week since Morgan Stark's so-called "rescue" by the vigilante known as Spider-Man, and there's still no word as to how this masked superhuman managed to get to the scene of the crime so quickly.

Tony Stark's daughter was rescued in upstate New York on Thursday, and first responders claim that Spider-Man had already left when they arrived, despite the fact that the upstate location was more than two hours outside of the vigilante's territory, and none of the witnesses saw any signs of a vehicle.

Stark Industries has refused to answer this publication's questions of how Spider-Man reached the remote location, supposedly without any knowledge of who the kidnappers were or where they were taking the child.

A confidential source close to Mr. Quentin Beck told the Bugle that they believe Spider-Man may have been working with the kidnappers in an attempt to shake down his former associate's company.

"Both Mysterio and Spider-Man worked for Stark before he died," the source said. "They even worked on missions together after his unfortunate death. It seems likely that they hatched the plan while SI was in turmoil and looked for a way to take advantage of the confusion."

Rather than address these concerns, the latest updates from SI upper management instead chose to mock the US government's attempts to check SI influence and take cheap shots at competition.

"Tony always wanted the whole world to be able to enjoy the things he'd created," Tony Stark's widow told reporters yesterday. "It's worked out pretty well so far, and we're very excited to share some of our latest projects with the public."

SI seems content to bask in the spotlight generated by this conveniently resolved kidnapping and use the publicity in order to promote some new project that puts competing corporations out of business (the Stark Tech University Depository and Inventory, which significantly hurt textbook publishers throughout the country, is the most recent example of SI's history of "public service"), instead of acknowledging the concerns raised by the newest development in the case against Quentin Beck.

_(Photograph of Spider-Man credit: Peter Parker.)_

**Comments **

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**Ed Green:** _Of course the mainstream media just ignores the glaring inconsistencies in Spider-Man's story...people will believe anything they read on their phones these days, such a shame… _

**Pam Key:** _O.M.G. so convenient how the Spider just "happens" to be there as soon as the police catch up to Beck...would NOT surprise me if he/it turned out to be behind the whole thing! _

**Sean Moran:** _Anyone else worried about what new "gift" SI has for the masses? All that big deal over the STUDI program, and it turned out just to be free textbooks? I bet college studemts were just relieved they didn't have to figure out what an actual paperback book looks like, lol _

**Anonymous**: _so the "confidential source" claims that Spider-Man and Mysterio worked together before Stark died, even though Mysterio's first appearance was literally a week after he died? Way to fact check, Bugle #seemslegit _

_(This comment has 357 replies. Click here to continue thread.)_

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**flashmob** Just another Friday night in NYC with ya boi! Shoutout to everyone's favorite friendly neighborhood superhero @therealspiderman for keeping it real and keeping the city cool! #flashmob #no1fan #spiderman #nycspiderman

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**flashmob** you guys really have to do this in my comments section huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all, folks! Thank you for reading, and thank you so, so much to everyone who left such wonderful comments!! (I promise I will get around to responding to each one as soon as classes are done literally curb-stomping me).
> 
> Again, thank you so much for sticking with this story, and thank you for the amazing feedback and encouragement!!!!


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